


Every Place I Called Home

by brutumfulmen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Experienced Crowley (Good Omens), Falling In Love, M/M, Miscommunication, The Flood - Freeform, Time Skips, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-08 07:17:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21472159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutumfulmen/pseuds/brutumfulmen
Summary: There is no sense in having a home when it can be taken away from you at any given moment. Crowley doesn’t mind, he’s not one to stay put anyways.Only, he has hurt more than just himself in the process of all this letting go, this leaving behind.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 64
Kudos: 223





	Every Place I Called Home

**Author's Note:**

> I usually don’t write notes for my one-shots, but given this one’s length I believe it prudent to do so. This is a love story above all else albeit not in the most clear-cut way of getting there. While it might not be many people’s sort of thing I do hope you understand that this story was a labour of love that I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on. I am happy to finally share it with you all.
> 
> Set aside some time and dig in. See you at the end.

_He is five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia staring up at a dark sky outside of the village he calls home. Rain soaked his thin clothes and frigid waters rose to his waist, but he refused to shiver._

_There is a child in his arms screaming for their parents but he cannot find them, he has looked already. He knew them, once. The parents. A week ago they were chatting with him over wine after a long day of working side by side in the field to bring in the harvest. Together, as the village has for years. Where that field is underneath the waves he does not know, cannot see his way in any direction as only endless waters meet his searching._

_The floodwaters wrapped around his neck tighter than a noose, and in response he held the child up as if an offering to God Herself. Nothing he has to give would be acceptable, yet he tried anyways._

_It clouded his unblinking eyes. He can no longer see the surface, but his feet stay anchored to soaked, shifting earth. Perhaps he has been standing in the field this whole time, this field just outside his home._

_He will not leave. He wants to stay, right here._

_All he can do, though, is reach through rushing waters. Reach his now empty hands up towards a surface lost to him and countless others. His lungs burn in a way so much like Falling, but even now he cannot help himself, cannot help but question._

_What have you done, he called from the loneliness he now understands as drowning, let it echo under the murky deluge. With no response, he called out once more in a desperate gurgle of bubbling air to ask why his home and village have washed away in this Great Flood about to take him with it._

_Why build a home, why build a home at all._

Hell’s going to have his arse for this one.

Crowley, six cups into a dark red wine and having pulled every trick in the book out, begrudgingly accepted imminent failure after two years at the wicked - and it is indeed impressive to have a demon call you such - Roman emperor’s court.

Tempting Caligula has been an unmitigated disaster despite even his most aggressive, creative efforts. While usually proud of his impressive mastery over sin and general lack of self-restraint, no matter how depraved Crowley went, Caligula demanded he go further. On nearly every surface of the palace he took the self-proclaimed god-king. Spread open, bent over, against a wall or on his royal knees, Crowley worked the emperor to the brink and then over it again and again. No matter what it was Caligula begged for it all and in return Crowley demanded the emperor’s soul with every thrust or flick of his tongue, only to be denied each time.

It has been two years, an _exhausting _two years.

Caligula would still not seal the deal and it was making Crowley look very bad to his bosses as they knocked against the back of his head with thinning patience. While Caligula might enjoy Crowley’s carnal expertise, he continuously refused to agree to Hell’s impressive, increasingly desperate contract.

Stubborn, even after he wrung Crowley’s spirit dry in tandem with their joined, lust-soaked bodies.

As he drank, some anchored notion in the rising waters of Crowley’s stomach wondered if Caligula was more interested in _Crowley _than anything else at this point. What good were demonic promises when you had an empire under you and Hell’s finest on top of you?

_Stay_.

He can see it in the emperor’s poisoned well-water eyes from across the table at a banquet, gazing up at him as they writhe together in every corner of the palace. Each time he turned away, unable to withstand it. What does it say about Crowley that so vile a human wants him?

Offered the bed of an emperor as his home, it’s enough to make him wish he never came here.

Sagging into the stool, Crowley downed the rest of his wine in one gulp and shifted with discomfort as his heavy robe clung to his skin in the stuffy bar. The dark _toga picta _and gaudy silver circlet stood out wherever he went more than his dark glasses. Got him the finest treatment, yes, but wool was too thick for weather this far south, and it soaked through with sweat immediately even after he snapped his fingers. In Crowley’s opinion they are downright atrocious, but they had been gifted to him by a satisfied Senator he’d fucked in a round robin at some party earlier this summer. He will be alleviating himself of them at the earliest opportunity, or once Hell decided enough is enough and pulls him off this assignment.

Until that happened, Caligula expected him back at the palace tomorrow for an orgy being held in his honour and he would be remiss to not show. He will need his energy to get through that, but for now Crowley planned to drink himself into an inhumanly impossible stupor before he must put his hands on the emperor’s - and everyone else’s - body again.

Another drink is ordered from the bartender when a voice filtered through the noise of the crowded bar.

“Crawly? Crowley?”

Aw _fuck_.

Crowley bit back a groan. There’s no need to look over, he knew that voice anywhere.

“Well, fancy running into you here,” Aziraphale continued in a casual tone, although Crowley did not bother to respond.

Instead, he stared resolutely ahead at the bar’s dirty wall and resisted the asinine urge to pull his robe tighter around him despite the sweltering heat. His skin bore the marks of Senators and the emperor alike, their lust littered his neck and torso and other less visible places. Badges to flaunt in the right company, yet in front of Aziraphale he would be exposed in the worst of ways.

Aziraphale has not taken the hint as he continued to speak.

“Still a demon?”

Crowley saw red. Of all the things to—

He whipped around to glare at Aziraphale’s shocked face and snarled back something definitely undeserved but Satan’s _breath _he is not in the mood for the endless reminder of what he is. And also what he clearly failed to be - a demon tempting some depraved human.

Aziraphale hovered in the corner of his view even after they toast, his high voice chagrin-soaked as he offered a weak ‘_salutaria’_, and then said nothing more.

After a long stretch of silence Crowley, refusing to feel guilt over his outburst while at the same time trying to cover every inch of himself, began to hope Aziraphale would go somewhere else. He is not going to apologise for his harsh words, for being here trying to steal a moment’s peace in the one place no one else would have recognised him. Nor will he apologise for how their last interaction went.

They have not crossed paths in over eight years, since Golgotha, parting ways in awkward silence after Christ's crucifixion.

Aziraphale, he remembered, had attempted to cajole him into dinner and some wine, a gesture of goodwill no doubt. Crowley even now viewed it as such, however, if he did not possess an appetite most days, he certainly did not after watching the Almighty’s abandonment of Her only begotten son.

‘Check back in three days’ nonsense be damned. He spent forty days unsuccessfully tempting the Son of God and even he didn’t turn away like She did. Incapable of understanding the inherent cruelty of it all, Aziraphale let Crowley leave without a parting word, upholding his heavenly righteousness over the whole matter.

“In town long?” And he’s _still_ here.

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation,” Crowley said, unwilling to offer more.

Not a lie anyways, were he even inclined to do so to Aziraphale. Two years was nothing to him and there was no need for the angel to know exactly how debased his beloved humans can be when there’s a demon coaxing them on. 

As for why this mattered so much to him, he refused to explore the notion further and Crowley brought his cup to his lips again as he fought off his own thoughts. House Brown tasted like dirt, but it was better than whatever he was drinking before.

He opened his mouth before restraint could kick back in.

“You?”

At the conversation opening Aziraphale fluttered closer, his eagerness almost a physical pressure against Crowley’s now aching temples.

“I thought I’d try Petronius’ new restaurant, I’ve heard he does fantastic things with oysters,” he replied, a smile in his voice.

Unexpected, Crowley conceded, but not all too surprising when he remembered who he was speaking with. Roman banquets provided a lot to dine on, the gluttons they are. In turn, Crowley preferred the more metaphorical eating that went on during them which has left his palette untouched of most local cuisine. Oysters sounded marginally exotic, far as he knew.

“I’ve never eaten an oyster,” Crowley said, before refilling his cup with a pointed glare.

Aziraphale perked up out of his peripheral. 

“Oh! Well, let me tempt you to - oh, no.”

Surprise lit up the fuse of his spine, unsure if he heard correctly. With careful movements Crowley turned to Aziraphale, dressed in a simple white toga, flushed red and stuttering his way through that awkward, fumbling banter he knew the angel so well for.

It was a comforting sight, for some reason.

Four thousand years he’s known Aziraphale, never a blond hair out of place atop his pious, fussy head. Always that same nervous smile. Crowley doubted Heaven could create a more steadfast angel than Aziraphale.

Like a focal point upon this earth, unchanging and unflinchingly kind almost to his own detriment at times.

And here he was, having sought Crowley of all people out, inviting - _tempting_ \- him to dine together in a place Aziraphale wanted to experience for the first time. Crowley never wanted to go anywhere with others. Too much like staying put, staying the same.

‘_Crawly’ just wasn’t really doing it for me._

Crowley pulled off the heavy silver circlet and hung it upon his belt. He ran a hand through the shorn curls that were so in style nowadays. How unnatural it was, to not feel the long hair he’d worn for millennia, but times change and so should he.

He looked over at Aziraphale.

“Alright, show me this restaurant.”

“So.” Crowley crowded into Aziraphale’s space as they walked through Rome’s teeming main street, busy even on such a hot evening.

“Outside of oysters, what else brings you to Rome?”

Aziraphale dodged a passing human by a hair’s width as he delicately cleared his throat.

“I live here, of course.”

Crowley blinked down at Aziraphale. Someone ran into him but he did not even flinch, instead he squared his posture and pushed forward, breaking through the crowd as a boat might part water. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Aziraphale more easily keeping pace at the clearing made for him, before he remembered the angel had spoken.

“_Live_ here?”

Aziraphale nodded, a pleased smile on his face that seemed to illuminate him from within.

“Indeed, of course Heaven is my true home as you are aware, but I do try to find somewhere to call home in each place I work. Makes blending amongst the locals much easier if I can say ‘oh why yes I’m just down the road’.” Aziraphale paused to take a breath, glanced away briefly before meeting Crowley’s eyes.

“Which I am, in fact.” He tipped his head, eyebrows raised as though waiting for Crowley to, who knows, congratulate him? Complement his good idea?

Crowley was unimpressed. First at considering Heaven a home and then at the notion of having a home at all.

Except. Why hasn’t Aziraphale ever invited him over? Isn’t that what people do? Invite each other over to their places? Even Crowley received invitations from commoner and noble alike, barely knowing them for more than a few days or hours prior. Four thousand years is a long time to know someone, so Aziraphale has no reason not to.

_Still a demon?_

Aziraphale’s earlier words knocked the air from his unnecessary lungs. How could he forget. Sometimes he made it so easy to do so, and other times, all too impossible.

“Crowley?”

Shaking his head, Crowley said nothing and weaved them through the dense crowd even though he has no clue where they are going. Somewhere behind his left shoulder Aziraphale continued to talk, a tad breathless in his attempt to match pace with Crowley’s much longer strides. 

“Do you not do the same? It - I assume you would agree it is nice to have a place all one’s very own. I know demonic work picks up much ah, quicker however it really-”

Crowley stopped walking to bark out a laugh that turned several heads, and he looked down his nose at Aziraphale’s confused frown.

He stared into Aziraphale’s eyes and thought about how it would be, living right down the road from the various Senators and households he’s fucked, the emperor sending an armed guard to summon him back to the palace every other day. He thought about never being able to escape this hell until a coup beheaded the entire palace and discorporated him back to actual Hell.

“Me? Come on,” he gestured to himself, watching Aziraphale’s gaze flicker across him before it snapped back to his concealed eyes. Crowley leaned forward into Aziraphale’s space, enjoying how their height difference let him loom and cast a shadow over the light Aziraphale radiated, although it seemed to have dimmed as they walked.

“Do I look like the sort to settle down? Or even _want _to?”

Aziraphale_…_ reined in whatever it was that crossed his face, a complicated sequence of his pale eyebrows furrowing and full lips tugging downwards.

The angel looked away, and at this the conversation stagnated, heavy as the humid night air. They spent the rest of the walk in silence, Aziraphale’s hands fluttering from his sides to his chest, picking at the wide collar of his toga as he avoided eye contact with Crowley.

Crowley shrugged, uninterested in catering to even _this_ angel’s disapproval. Not that any angel could understand his reasoning. He has not considered anywhere his home since God flooded him out of the last one. Kicked him out of the one before that too, although he kind of had that one coming if he truly was honest with himself. But there’s no point in bothering to rest your head anywhere when you get sent a particularly large hint over the whole concept.

And what a hint it was. One he took three thousand years ago. Thank you very much, Almighty, but let’s not have a repeat of all that.

So, why has Aziraphale never invited him over?

“Oh, here we are.”

Aziraphale has led them to Petronius’ restaurant, a place which looked like every other eatery this side of the Roman empire as far as Crowley was concerned. Withholding a sigh at the loud, crowded interior, Crowley followed him inward.

With a persuasion only someone out of Hell possessed, they are quickly seated far in the back of the restaurant with a smattering of couples and duos hoping to dine in relative peace.

Crowley ordered their wine while Aziraphale put in a request for this dish he was trying to ‘tempt’ a demon into consuming. Giddiness could be the closest description for what is sitting across from Crowley, and his lips quirked as Aziraphale chatted on about the numerous qualities this restaurant’s meals possessed. If Aziraphale could be this animated even after their discussion, maybe these oysters would not be too bad to try.

After eating exactly one oyster, Crowley has determined the angel across from him - this_ hereditary enemy_ \- is trying to kill him and may very well succeed. 

He swallowed the slimy meat with a grimace before chasing it with some red wine and complemented Aziraphale on his impeccable taste. In return Aziraphale beamed and delved into his meal with an impressive degree of excitement. From what Crowley remembered, eyes fixated on the unusual display across from him, Heaven never possessed much enthusiasm for anything. It was one of the many aspects of Aziraphale that both intrigued and perplexed Crowley, but he was not about to complain.

Aziraphale meticulously seasoned an oyster before tipping it into his mouth with a delighted moan loud enough to set Crowley on edge, his tongue pressed tight against the back of his teeth to prevent himself from hissing. Sharp claws emerged against his will and dug into the meat of his thighs even through these terrible, dense robes.

Obscene for an angel, he mused without an ounce of venom. Kept his thoughts to himself and watched Aziraphale’s pale mouth each time he parted his lips, every heavy swallow moving the thick column of his unblemished neck.

They sat for hours, chatted about topics Crowley feigned interest in as he continued watching Aziraphale’s expressive face speak volumes more than any words could. Bliss was an _excellent _look on Aziraphale, Crowley decided as he ordered another dish from some passing server who jumped to deliver at the sight of Crowley’s lavish robes and ornate circlet.

A pleased flush rose on Aziraphale’s soft cheeks, undoubtedly from the wine and the heat.

“Enjoying the meal?” Polite, even as he brought another oyster to his lips.

Crowley grunted, not in the mood for lying about this disgusting meal while he admired Aziraphale, instead bringing the reasonably strong wine back to his lips before he responded.

Then, a fog heavy with desire fed into Crowley’s vision and sent him light-headed. Recovering fast enough not to dribble all over himself, he sucked the wine down with a harsh, reorienting burn. His eyes itched as gold flooded through them and the slit pupils blew wide then shuttered behind his dark spectacles at the lustful rush.

Discreetly, Crowley tasted the air, laden with the aroma of rich food and human musk and something close to brimstone. _Someone _in here is more than interested in a dalliance with Hell, and he has been called to deliver.

How inconvenient, he grumbled to no one in particular. Right in the middle of dinner, too.

Aziraphale continued to ramble on, now cutting into some type of white fish the server brought per Crowley’s earlier request, oblivious to his scan of the throngs of wine-soaked nobles and laughing patrons. Haze consumed his vision the longer it took to find Hell’s intended target. A sheen of sweat formed on his brow, his trembling grip on the cup sounded out a clatter as it rattled atop the table.

“Cra - Crowley?” Aziraphale’s high voice cut through the fog, clearing Crowley’s mind briefly. He saw out of the corner of his eye Aziraphale pause, fork halfway to his mouth, lips ever so slightly parted.

“You alright?”

“’Course, angel,” he muttered, pulling a long sip from his cup in an attempt to quell the fire burning through him. His eyes dragged across each human as though he were touching them. Where are they?

“...Angel?” Aziraphale sounded far away, and Crowley was about to turn to ask what he was going on about when movement caught his attention.

_Ah, there you are._

Over near the bar and surrounded by others sat a relaxed noble with dark, kohl-lined eyes that did not waver from Crowley as he met their stare. Bathed in a warm glow from the restaurant’s candlelight, the noble tipped their chin to Crowley, who dipped his own in response. No wonder Hell knocked on the back of his head so hard, they have been watching him for quite some time. 

Well, if it had to interrupt dinner, at least they are easy on the eyes.

“Oh - oh _really_?”

Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale with a raised brow and watched him frown, having followed his focus back to the noble. Not as subtle as he hoped, it seems.

Before he can defend himself from Aziraphale’s incoming lecture the noble stood and drew their attention once again. As they turned, a tumble of silken ringlets bounced across their sculpted shoulders that had Crowley wondering what they would feel like between his fingers. Departing with a quick bow to their adoring crowd’s dismay the noble moved through the restaurant and past Crowley, their lavishly ornate robes fluttered with the low sway of their hips as they walked. 

A dark glance over the shoulder crooned everything Crowley needed to hear, notably the whole ‘lay me over the nearest surface, would you kindly’ part. Crowley read it with a flash of teeth, setting Aziraphale on edge by the way he sucked in a sharp breath, hands clenched around his fork and knife.

“Can you, you really should not be abiding by them in such a way. It - it is not our purpose,” Aziraphale said, unreadable eyes locked in the direction of where the noble had disappeared. That soft voice was almost lost in the roar of the restaurant around them, but Crowley heard him, he always does.

It stung in a way Crowley did not expect.

Shame, an odd feeling for a demon to have and he clenched his fists against it, willed his sea-sick emotions away on a tide of indignation. He wanted to snap at Aziraphale to let him enjoy this one palette cleanser even if he was despised for it. Even if it rained heavenly judgement upon his head. Caligula would have Crowley back at the palace soon enough for _Somebody’s_ sake and damn him twice but he isn’t looking forward to it at all.

Instead, Crowley swallowed the truth, bit deep into his tongue and dropped his spectacles down his long nose to peer in full light at Aziraphale’s righteous frown. “Your lot’s purpose, you mean. Still a demon, remember?” Aziraphale winced and set his utensils down.

“That, that is not what I meant, surely you know I—”

Crowley stood and smoothed down the front of his oppressive robes with a damp hand. Fuck, it’s hot in here, isn’t it.

“Gotta go Aziraphale, duty calls.” Snap of the fingers and a generous amount of coin dropped onto the table between them. Enough to cover both their meals along with anything Aziraphale desired more of, since Crowley’s company was not nearly enough.

“Crowley—”

Aziraphale made as though he were to stand, a hand reached up and out towards him but Crowley stepped back. Anything to get away from those disappointed eyes, from the angel that compelled him to apologise for everything he is.

Shame is… Crowley hated it.

“Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

He left Aziraphale sitting there with an odd, pinched expression fixated down at his plate. Such outright disdain for the funner part of his demonic proclivities, for him. No wonder Aziraphale never invited him over, he really should be used to this by now.

Passing through a wall of curtains and the noise of Petronius’ restaurant faded away at last as Crowley slunk down a shadowy corridor that wound up connecting to a shared courtyard. A moment was taken to admire the courtyard’s summer bloom, proudly filled with well-kept greenery and lush bushes spiralled up towards a cloudy night sky. He stopped to look around, tasted in the air a curious mix of spicy perfume and sweet flowers. They should be somewhere nearby. Further into the courtyard?

After a low hum in thought, Crowley made to turn when without a sound the noble pressed right up against him, a playful smile stretched across their gorgeous face.

“I’ve heard about you, you know. Was surprised to see you here,” they said, eyes glittering as they looked up at him. He grinned down with an eyebrow raised, glancing over how the moonlight cast about their ideal Roman features. The grin slipped as he found something missing, unable to place what.

“I was hoping you would join me,” the noble continued, unaware of his thoughts as they slipped a smooth hand between the folds of his toga to reveal the jut of his collarbones and much more. A surge of lustful images poured into his mind through the sensual touch of their fingers running down his chest. Crowley smirked, his arms wound around their waist as long fingers sunk into sumptuous fabric and pristine flesh.

“Never been the sort to resist temptation, especially such a good-looking one.” Captive and enamoured by the purr of want in his voice they reached up towards him, dark eyes fogged with desire and he leaned in to close the gap.

How could he ever feel ashamed of this.

Thoughts of Aziraphale came to him when he is indeed tipping the noble over a low garden wall, away from crowds and the judgmental stares of a holier-than-him angel. It crept up on him like the hands he ran over flesh consumed by lust, this soul won for Hell. They writhed between Crowley and the hard marble wall, moaning for more and his demonic energy drank it all in, a thirst never quenched. Fingers slick with grease and salt from dinner slide up the noble’s toga and hiked the luxurious fabric high around their hips to leave stains in his wake.

Has he always been this unclean?

_Still a demon?_

Aziraphale’s pinched, disapproving expression rose up in his mind and he scoffed before he turned the noise into a series of hot breaths along the noble’s neck, nipped his way across their shoulder blades with more force than intended. Not everyone is lucky enough to get the pristine, holy work of God Herself; able to perform a miracle then wash their hands of the whole matter.

Crowley flipped the noble to face him and crowded between their supple thighs. Their sharp nails dug into his back as he spread their legs wide around his hips before he sunk himself deep into that glorious heat, their mutual sigh of pleasure released into the warm summer air. The night sky illuminates and darkens all at once as they writhe together. Clouds raced across the full moon overhead, and in the pale light he stared not into deep brown eyes but ones of the softest blue.

_Crowley—_

He blinked, the vision gone as clouds stole the moon and left them in darkness. Swallowing down the tension in his throat, Crowley leaned back in and wondered if there would come a time that Aziraphale washed his hands of him, too.

How does he always know it’s Aziraphale?

Over half a billion people on this planet by now, there is no way it can be him every single time Crowley happened to have a decent temptation going on. 

But he is led time and again to Aziraphale throughout the ages. No matter how far he cast himself out into the world he would find himself pulled into the tide of Aziraphale for some reason or another and there he would remain. Aziraphale needed him and against his better - or is it worse - judgment Crowley planned to be there every time.

Including this time.

Crowley awoke to a dull pain between his shoulder blades, the elbow of someone he knew by how close they apparently liked sleeping to him. Rolling off his thin bed mat onto the dirty wooden floor, Crowley groped for his flintlock and glasses, blinking once, twice to adjust in the dark room. It must be mid day by the storm-logged grey peeking in through the heavy fabric nailed over the room’s broken windows.

He pulled his dirty tailcoat tighter around him, grimaced as another draft whistled through the room to rattle the rungs of his aching spine. Only in miserable France did Crowley find he missed England’s winters.

England’s winters. Crowley shivered again while struggling to his feet. Among other notable English aspects he will not consider right now.

Over the low snoring of several exhausted humans scattered about the room, each trying to catch a reprieve before the next wave of riots called for them, Crowley listened closely. Urgent whispers rose up from the downstairs hallway of this hovel he inhabited with a gang of humans attempting to ride out the terror. Former peasants Crowley learned early on, each one broken by France’s feudal system. Blindly operating under the delusion that the_ levée en masse _will not require them to go fight in France’s future wars.

Outside of his earlier work in seducing and binding the remaining nobility to Hell’s hilariously loose contracts, Crowley knew little about what front office wanted him to do while he was here. Humanity truly was the image of God when it came to their efficiency in tormenting one another, after all. 

He slunk over his temporary roommates to the door and on silent footsteps went downstairs to join the hushed conversation. Movement caught his eye as he pressed himself into a corner and with little more than a jerk of his chin, he greeted a familiar face. More familiar than he would admit to, first encountering one another in some noble’s house Crowley writhed his way through last month, where she had been doing the same. It was inevitable they’d find themselves together - in more ways than one - during those horrific, memorable times.

They both looked away and back to the front of the room, where the command table was crowded with a nervous energy hovering like miasma. One of the older revolutionaries sat at the head of the table, a series of half melted candles burning low to illuminate the weather-worn faces gathered around, ears strained, listening. Her rough hands are precise, quick while pulling the needle through a torn seam in a threadbare overcoat, as she nodded along to another revolutionary as they whispered into her ear. Silence reigned as everyone waited.

She cleared her throat once the revolutionary pulled away, tugged the needle with more force than Crowley thought necessary.

“Apparently they caught another noble in town.” There is a beat. “Different than the others.”

Some commotion, a shift of worn leather soles and battered weaponry as the other revolutionaries moved in closer. Crowley stayed back, jaw clenched.

“Different how so, a - a child?”

A hush fell upon the gathered, discomfort in the air. Crowley shifted as the flintlock at his hip sagged heavily, one clawed thumb caught along its hammer. Letting a child-noble escape would be against Heaven’s plan no doubt, if he knew where they were. He has some time today, it could work—

“No,” a collective sigh echoed through the gathered group, and Crowley let out a breath as well, until the revolutionary continued on.

“An Englishman, looks like.” 

Crowley stiffened, eyes darted around the room to see a smattering of perplexed faces, watched the shuffling of bodies unsure of what to do with something not French.

“English? What are the English doing over here?”

_My thoughts exactly_. Crowley gripped the flintlock tight and flipped his collar up high as he peeled himself from the crowd, ignoring the tension rising in his throat. Without a glance back and darker than a shadow along the wall, he cursed what could have sounded like a name before he slipped out the door.

“What are you really doing here?”

Crowley hurt in more places than he wanted to admit. He barely had enough energy to miracle his clothing into a clean enough state worthy of Aziraphale’s presence and has now tapped into his corporeal form’s adrenaline reserves to get to the cell where Aziraphale was kept _and then _pause time itself.

He was tired.

With a weak snap of his fingers the clatter of shackles upon cold dungeon floors rang out and for a mere second Crowley let himself bask in the not-thanks he received from the angel. Thanks is interesting in a way shame is not interesting, and both are unwelcome for different reasons.

Except, Aziraphale had invited him to lunch, and Crowley cannot remember the last time he ate something. A ravenous appetite gnawed through him that spoke not for want of food, but Aziraphale’s company.

Yes, he agreed without more than a gesture.

Still, now that Aziraphale’s flush of relief at the guillotine forever denied his neck had waned, questions were bound to arise. All of which Crowley did not want to answer. He couldn't bring himself to tell Aziraphale the truth, throat closing up around the words as he waited for the guards and condemned man to depart.

No way in Heaven or Hell can he confide in the angel about the hellish duties he performed with France’s perished nobility. Of the endless bodies he caressed until they agreed to hand over their souls for wealth and power, only for it all to be lost to them the moment a horde of starving, enraged revolutionaries barged through their estate doors. There is so much he wants to spare Aziraphale, and himself. For one moment let him be worthy of Aziraphale’s admiration.

“Work and all is busy this time of revolution, you know.” He settled for. Not a lie, not at all. The one thing he can never bring himself to do is lie to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale nonetheless heard the unspoken truth and his pale face fell. He tried, valiantly, to thank Crowley again but once more he snarled Aziraphale into silence.

It’s _work_, Crowley longed to explain to Aziraphale, and he cannot understand why, snapping his fingers harshly to open another locked door. Why this is work will never be enough to ease an angel’s judgment of him. He is a demon and Aziraphale is an angel as he has been nicely reminded of so many times. 

So much for heavenly Grace.

They are walking from the dungeons deep in the tunnels, the sounds of blood lust long faded behind them and now Aziraphale no longer shuddered from horror but cold. It was quiet between them but not uncomfortable, with Crowley leading Aziraphale through deep, winding corridors however many feet down they now are and away from the epicentre of chaos to a safer section of Paris.

Crowley’s pupils contract into slivers of black before blowing wide as his vision straddled the line between human and serpent. Aziraphale’s grip on the tail of his coat tightened as they walked, and every so often Crowley felt him tug at it as if to ensure Crowley remained within his grasp. Delicate footsteps move Aziraphale forward, little more than hesitant shuffles scraped over damp stones to echo through Crowley’s aching head.

The longer they are down here, the more likely they are to get caught. Despite his less ostentatious clothing, Aziraphale carried himself far too much like an aristocrat to escape a second time, and Crowley fought with each step the overwhelming urge to turn around and pick the angel up to speed this whole process along. Crowley was about to do so when the air cooled and a biting wind brushed through his hair. The exit was nearby. He raised a hand, forgetting Aziraphale cannot see in darkness, and made to descend the stairs in front of them.

“Crowley, are you sure—!”

A cry of alarm rang out and without thinking he snapped around to grab Aziraphale’s arms in the clawed vice of his hands. With a hiss and push forward he steadied them both on the steep, narrow stairs. They have never been so close before, never touched like this. Despite being several steps lower, even now Crowley remained taller than the angel, and he cannot resist looking down into Aziraphale’s startled, relieved face, pale eyes unseeing in the dark. Although flushed, he did not look to be in pain.

A trip was all. Crowley sighed as the tension in his throat dissolved, and the sound echoed in the darkness around them.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale panted, unwittingly puffing hot and damp against the exposed skin of Crowley’s neck. He swallowed; sharp hands trembled with the desire to pull Aziraphale closer for no other reason than he longed to. How strange this desire was, and still, there it quietly sat behind his ribcage.

“What did I tell you about thanking me.”

Crowley had forgotten how it was to dine with Aziraphale. Or so he tells himself.

The two of them now safely sitting in one of the few Parisian restaurants not visibly impacted by the revolution. Around them life seemed to continue on as though France was not tearing itself apart from the inside out, and that food and stability were plentiful. Given how the waiter winced when Aziraphale put in their order, however, Crowley knew he would be receiving an exorbitant bill due to the current price of wheat - artificial price ceilings be damned. 

No matter, how long has it been since? Crowley considered it a worthy investment.

They talk about their respective tasks, Crowley careful to sidestep the majority of his work and instead entertained Aziraphale with discussion of the finer points regarding his temptations on the _levée _opposition front. Aziraphale dutifully rebuked him, less affronted than Crowley expected, his words carefully spoken in a way Crowley found unusual.

“Will you be in Paris long?” Aziraphale asked while he tucked into his meal the moment each plate settled on the table, but not before smiling politely at the waiter as they retreated. Angels.

“I will be out somewhere in Sweden for the next couple of months,” Crowley replied, making a show of cutting his crepes only to leave them there. He went back to watching Aziraphale as he talked. “Long term assignment. Will take more work than I prefer. Might not even pan out but Hell’s got nothing else for me to do anyways so tough luck for them.”

Aziraphale’s eating slowed, his eyes dropped to the table between them.

“Oh, I see.” He took a slow breath, as if steeling himself, or going up against a particularly frightful monster, and the thought of Aziraphale viewing Crowley as such left him wounded.

“What - Are you going for anything in particular?”

Crowley blinked, and used a fork to slide his uneaten crepes onto Aziraphale’s plate in one smooth motion. The wound in his chest eased itself closed at the angel’s pleased noise of surprise and left warmth in its place.

“Had a brilliant idea for getting Sweden and Norway to combine countries. Can you imagine it? If everything goes according to plan - meaning I have to fancy talk a bunch of generals - they’ll have a messy divorce in a few years, crying kids and everything.”

The ambiance of the restaurant filled the space between them when Crowley finished. Aziraphale hummed low, eyes flicking up to Crowley then back down to his plate, his reply hushed.

“That’s it?”

Crowley dug his tongue behind one of his fangs, thought hard for half a second.

“Far as I know.” He stiffened, looked closer at Aziraphale who shifted in his seat as if he could feel Crowley's eyes on him. “Is there something you need me to do out there? When you need it by?”

He sounded eager, desperate in a way unbecoming of a demon, but he doesn’t care. Crowley will leave now if a single word of assent came from Aziraphale. Aziraphale could always come with him, even, that would be—

Aziraphale looked up, eyes wide and so blue Crowley was reminded of oceans, a thousand leagues deep, and he fights back a shiver. No, not oceans he corrected, something much different. A hesitant smile stretched Aziraphale’s lips, ever so slightly shining with butter and Crowley would suffer the guillotine if he would be permitted to swipe it away with a fingertip.

Crowley swallowed saliva and his own self-disgust. Friends, from all he knows of them, do _not _think this way about one another.

Aziraphale, despite his recalcitrance over Crowley’s demonic state, does an admirable job at keeping a polite air about himself whenever they are around each other. Nothing can be gained from Crowley entertaining these dangerous thoughts, that aching affection that he’s found himself having cultivated through the centuries every time Aziraphale so much as smiled in his direction.

Before he slammed the dam shut tight against his thoughts a flash of them back in the dungeon appeared, of Aziraphale’s soft, warm weight in his arms, and he decided it had to be enough.

“No, no thank you. That’s - well that seems alright, then.” Aziraphale ducked his head, back to his meal with that enthusiasm Crowley enjoyed witnessing.

Crowley does not question the response despite it being definitely out of character whenever they have these discussions. Perhaps a couple hours in the Bastille has gotten to Aziraphale, so much so that Crowley’s plan to cause an international feud was ranked far lower than usual on the list of objectionable temptations. 

He will take it though. Aziraphale looked so pleased with him, nothing was worth disrupting this.

Crowley called the waiter over with a wave. He already knew what desserts Aziraphale might wish for, including the one he was certain Aziraphale has never tried, but something told Crowley that he will enjoy it very much. As the waiter hurried off with a promise to bring the wine poached pears out first, Crowley turned to take in Aziraphale’s glowing face, his apple round cheeks flushed with a happiness he let himself believe was because of him.

Yes, he can stay a bit longer for dessert, and especially for this smile he has not seen in far too long.

Sweden was a tough country to tempt. Years have passed by in the half-span of a blink, and he rarely blinks.

Crowley ducked under the low door frame, thick fur cloak battered by the snowstorm raging outside on this dark, cold night. Throwing his weight at the door he forced it shut against the howling wind desperate to enter the house. With an audible click of the lock he pressed his forehead to the wood, shivering.

He will never take the West’s winters for granted again.

“Took you long enough,” came a voice, the press of a hand on his shoulder turned him around.

He scowled as the woman yanked the leather bag from his frozen hands while he shrugged off his cloak and hung it beside hers near the door. At once the roaring fire’s warmth in the centre of their lodge reached his chilled bones, and he took in a deep breath before following her into the sitting room.

“Delays at post. Not like there’s a blizzard outside or anything,” he said, as she opened the bag and began sorting through their letters. She hummed in thought as she turned a letter over in hand before setting it aside where their diplomatic correspondence piled up on the handmade desk.

“Next time I’ll leave you locked out and let you thaw come morning,” she snipped, placing another envelope in a different pile.

“Please do. Could use a decent night’s sleep.”

Crowley spent a quick minute sorting himself out as she busied with their correspondence before checking around the place to see if there were any chores that need to be done. He had taken care of most everything before heading out that morning, but with her he never knew what mess awaited upon his return.

They have lived in this lodging for the past nine years after meeting at some grandiose diplomatic event. His eye had noted her handsome suit, the underlying softness of her sharp features as she bandied political discussion with ease despite her peers’ archaic snobbery. A necessary ally as he plunged into these two unknown countries with their foreign cultures and customs. She in turn needed the leverage he as an allegedly well-decorated Norwegian captain provided in order to push her ideas through. A few careful twists of the truth had them both working behind the scenes, moving necessary pieces to achieve their goals for these two Nordic countries.

Working with humans was not his usual way of operating, but they were far more capable of navigating this world than any supernatural being ever could. This was their domain, and he was not too proud to admit he would have been lost these years without her.

He does not know her real name, does not ask for it nor does she provide it. An agreement made between them in keeping one another’s secrets. Sometimes, Crowley received that which he gave, and in this case he cannot mind.

“Anything for me?” He asked, miracling them a bottle of wine while she looked away. In a quick flourish he filled her glass and set it across from him on the table near her chair.

“Who would want to talk to you,” she shot back, slicing through an envelope. Nothing important so far then.

“Obviously that one duke with the heinous moustache and a sneeze loud enough to shatter glass. Kept asking if I would be willing to arrange a marriage between you both. As if I’d let anyone damn themselves in such a way.” She snorted and they fell into companionable silence as the storm raged on outside. He sipped his wine and watched as she pulled the last letter out. Her eyebrows rose and his followed, waiting for her to tell him.

“Now look at this.” She flicked it across the room and Crowley stretched to catch it. “You have a letter all your very own.”

Crowley rolled his head, cracking his neck as he idly waved the letter at her. 

“The duke again? No wait, the admiral? Thought you handled all that. Didn’t I tell you to forge my signature whenever he writes.”

“Not at all, it’s not even marked as diplomatic.” She dropped the bag over the back of a chair and propped her hip against the desk. “Looks like a normal letter most people get when they aren’t miserable bastards.”

“Told you people want to talk to m-” Crowley’s words died in his throat as he flipped the letter over, greeted by familiar copperplate handwriting.

_From Mr. A.Z. Fell to Cpt. Crowley of the Norwegian Navy_

_and_

_Esteemed Member of the Norwegian Diplomatic Attaché_ _to Sweden_

Of course Aziraphale would figure out his title.

He hoped to Somebody that Aziraphale never found out about his ill-conceived attempts at heroism during 1801 in Copenhagen. Despite the crushing defeat, the whole debacle led to his decorations not being so alleged anymore. Hell barely spared him the rod over it until he argued the loss would further Hell’s goals and that since Heaven’s envoy heavily favoured Britain the damage would be an impressive blow to the angelic host.

An impatient snap of fingers brought him back. Crowley blinked, glaring as she waved the envelope opener in front of his eyes.

“‘S an old friend.” He snatched the thin blade from her and with a short slice cut the envelope open. It was thick, weighty parchment, finer than anything Crowley has ever received before. Hell preferred cheap paper, the scratchier the better was the supplier’s motto. She moved closer, perched on the arm of his chair as he unfolded the letter.

“How’d they know you’re here?” Crowley grunted and glanced up at her raised brow expression before back to the letter as a sudden heat crept up his neck before he shoved it back down.

“Let him know I was over this way. Kept it vague, however,” he admitted before tugging the thick folded paper out. Aziraphale hadn’t written him a letter, he thought, eyes widening as he thumbed through the pages.

He’d written Crowley a novel.

Aziraphale had tracked him down, probably spent months if not years trying to locate him only so that he could write him a letter. The thought sent his fingers twitching, creasing the heavy pages under his grip. He cursed.

A high, curious noise jumped from her throat.

“He must have truly wished to reach you, given how…” Her words faded as his eyes fell upon the beginnings of Aziraphale’s letter, and if his heart stopped, he did not notice.

_‘My dear Crowley,’_

Crowley’s throat flooded with saliva as his eyes dart over those three words. Over and over he arranged them in all possible coherent orders and some incoherent, eliminating, piecing them together until nothing remained except that which was written there on the paper in Aziraphale's own hand.

Dear Crowley. My dear. My Crowley.

She remained silent as he grappled over three simple words for what felt to be mere seconds, until a long finger tapped against the letter.

“Next page, please.” Another tap right over the ‘dear’. He flipped the letter as he glared up at her.

“No one teach you manners?”

She raised a brow. “Has no one taught you how to talk in polite company?”

“Find some polite company and we’ll both practice,” Crowley hissed, ignoring the sharp pinch to his ear as she slid off the chair’s arm.

“Helda was delayed from arrival due to the storm, but she should be here tomorrow,” she called from her new place at the frost-glazed window, the wine glass hovered at her mouth as a hand worried the heavy fabric of her lounge coat. Crowley only ever saw her wear this ensemble when greeting certain people. One singular person, to be more precise.

“If you don’t want to be immediately harangued for the contents of your-” He scowled at the pointed pause in her words. “Old friend’s letter, I suggest you tuck it away or excuse yourself.”

Crowley rolled his eyes and pressed the letter closer to him. There was no sense rushing her to leave as she would tease him without mercy in the way all humans seem capable of. Resigned to enjoying her company, Crowley talked with her over their wine until the evening was late and she left him upon a bid goodnight he returned.

Then, with the hearth’s fire roaring bright as if by magic and his heart certain to be heard in the settled calm of the night, Crowley began to read Aziraphale’s letter.

_My dear Crowley,_

_I hope this letter finds you hale, however by the time it reaches you I fear you might have moved on._

_London is dreadfully cold now; the winter never before has seemed so harsh. I have had to perform more miracles to keep some of the less fortunate from the worst of it. Oh, but listen to me go on about myself already and complain about the weather as if you are not undoubtedly in a place far more disastrous for thin blood than here._

_Although it has been several years, I have been keeping careful notes of the happenings going on in London to share with you, so you did not miss anything of importance. Without going into too much detail..._

The letter went on for nine pages about London and greater England, along with numerous stories about a person or two Aziraphale found ‘simply delightful’ which several sentences down he unwittingly clarified to mean he had bought a rare book from them. None of it was terribly interesting to Crowley, but it was to Aziraphale, enough so that he felt writing about it to Crowley was worth his time.

Although he’d never admit to it, Crowley was touched, and he read Aziraphale’s seemingly endless letter as he never has anything else. Every word was scrutinised, placing himself right there with Aziraphale as he told his little stories and segued it all into a discussion on how long it took to build a bookshelf and then build forty, but all incorrectly. It is agonizingly detailed, right down to the organizational systems he’d struggled to decide between. Crowley was almost cross-eyed by the time he reached the end of Aziraphale’s letter, only to shake his head in disbelief at the most unexpected sentence.

_...With that in mind, I do hope upon your return you choose to join me in celebration of the shop’s grand opening. It will not be an extravagant affair, merely the unlocking of the door and perhaps an opening of the windows if the winter chill ever eases up, and maybe even a bottle of wine or two, but I would so appreciate you being there._

_While I greatly anticipate your eventual arrival to England, do not feel the need to rush your work or leave on my behalf, you have much to do over there after all. Admittedly, I was worried it would all be your usual misdeeds and foolery, but the newspapers I have imported from Scandinavia are filled with the most fascinating tales of your noble endeavours and diplomatic accomplishments. A captain in the Norwegian Navy, how heroic! At least, that is what the translators have provided to me._

_Now, do not laugh at me as one translator did, quite rudely so I should say, but I simply asked what..._

If Crowley could handle another one of Aziraphale’s winding tales, he would. Exhaustion has crept into the corners of his eyes and in an attempt to finish the letter he jumped past Aziraphale’s tangent to see a stiffly written line, as though the hand that wrote it had trembled.

_The shop’s light will be left burning as your return is awaited. You are greatly missed back here in England._

_Safe travels._

_Always,_

_Aziraphale_

Where ‘missed’ began Crowley could see a thick dot of ink blot the paper, as though Aziraphale had pressed the quill too hard into the word. Very unlike him, Crowley mused with a frown as he reread the letter, although the quill’s nib might have simply held too much ink. He would need to purchase the angel a finer one when he was back in England.

England. Aziraphale has invited him to his home.

Crowley grit his teeth to suppress the un-demonic grin threatening to overwhelm his decidedly demonic face. A rising warmth not felt since stepping into Sweden’s endless winters flickered to life in his chest. Not only did he want Crowley back in that small damp country, he wanted to celebrate his bookshop’s opening - that one ridiculous dream Aziraphale’s had for millennia - with Crowley.

Although a physical exhaustion clung to his bones, Crowley sat awake all night to reread the letter and this time he did not skip over that last tangent.

He laughed, just like the translator had.

Oh, angel.

The next morning he felt her hands on his shoulders shake him awake. A blanket had been tossed over him sometime during the night but nothing was said in regards to that. They prepared breakfast, bleary-eyed and slow, then sat together and ate at their table piled high with nonsense and paperwork. It was a good meal since he made most of it, yet it nearly tasted of paper. Even as he grunted out a comment or two at her quiet, work-related chatter, the letter in his house coat’s pocket might as well have been a boat carrying him through the North Sea.

“Next train out will be sometime this evening,” she said as she brought her fork up, eyes trained on some book already stained with flecks of grease and scratch notes. He hissed in surprise at her voice, dropping his fork which has been suspended near his mouth for the past minute.

“You should be down at the coast and aboard a ship come morning.” Her eyes flicked up to him, and he resisted the urge to check to see if he was dressed, how bare he felt.

“That is, if you’re quick about it.”

“Should’ve said earlier if you wanted me gone that bad,” he tried, the words hollow as they passed his lips. An exhaustion nothing to do with his corporeal form seeped into him, left him cold. But she only shook her head, lips tugged upwards into the semblance of a smile, then went back to her book.

“Takes about a decade to get good at something, they say. Forging your signature only took a week.”

A hand touched over his, and he let them rest there as they whiled the morning away in a brief, comfortable silence. They did not leave the table as breakfast lingered into lunchtime. They talked and planned and fought off the unsteady feeling in both their chests until she rose first and waved him to follow.

“Train isn’t going to wait forever.”

Right, there was a train to catch, a ship back to England. Aziraphale was waiting at his bookshop, for him.

In a sudden flurry of energy, he raced to his bedroom and threw his clothing on without a care the shirt was backwards and packed nothing save for the letter which he hid away in a careful pocket over his left breast. At the impatient call for him outside his door he pulled on his thickest coat and grabbed the grey scarf whose twin hung beside the woman’s utility coat near the fireplace.

“Helda is almost here and she’s going to know you have something to hide,” she said from across the room during her perusal of the progressive wine collection he’s built them. A subtle miracle, the snap of his fingers behind his back, and every year a case of them will arrive at her doorstep, imported from somewhere with alcoholic options other than distilled potatoes.

Besides, demons are supposed to encourage drinking, he’s doing his part.

“Helda needs to mind her bloody business. I don’t go reading you two’s letters,” he muttered, hands tugging his coat in place and pulling on the gloves she’d left on the table for him.

Crowley looked up in time to see her smile at him from across the room in that way she did as if she knew something he did not. He offered a wry grin in return.

Maybe she did.

Humans, and their endless mysteries.

Her smile widened further as the anticipated knock on the front door came. A hand pushed back her hair, then once more smoothed down the front of that special coat, and he could not help but wonder if Aziraphale ever wore anything specially for him.

Would Aziraphale be so eager to see him crossing his bookshop’s threshold?

Crowley wrapped the scarf tighter around his neck, pressed his hand to where the letter resides. Without a look back he slipped out the side door and left the woman he’s known for almost a decade to greet her beloved in privacy from this point onward.

His stay in Sweden was over.

Aziraphale has officially chosen London as his permanent home, Crowley wagered. The last one he knew about lay somewhere in the ruins of Rome and since then Aziraphale never brought up other residences, nor had he invited Crowley to any of them.

Until now, and he knew better than to admit he liked the bookshop for this exact reason. That letter of invitation enough to launch him across Europe so he could be the one Aziraphale greeted when he opened the doors to his beloved bookshop.

Crowley originally went there armed with a case of wine he picked up on the way back through Europe, fully expecting to be shown the bookshop in a courtesy tour and then promptly ushered away by the angel. Instead, Aziraphale barely acknowledged the case of wine and waved Crowley in, and in the wake of the seeing Aziraphale’s beaming, relieved face he was helpless to refuse, legs moving on their own up the steps.

They spent the first month of his return in one another’s company. Each day better than the last as Aziraphale showed him every nook and crevice of the bookshop, as he talked about the visions he had for the empty bookshelves and the ones he filled with his curated stockpile from across the millennia.

Crowley had walked through the shop with Aziraphale hovering behind him, but he did not feel scrutinised. Every time his gloved hand ran down the spine of a book, the angel would have another flurry of excitement waiting for Crowley and he could picture it all. Everything Aziraphale longed for in this bookshop, Crowley wanted for the angel, too.

It also had its practical benefits, Crowley reluctantly accepted as he signed off on the title to this strange Mayfair flat, was handed the keys, a bit dazed by it all as the realtor waved him off with a smile. Aziraphale stayed put nowadays, which left Crowley to take on more of the remote tasks in their Arrangement as the industrial revolution took hold of western Europe. Another benefit lay in Crowley’s newfound ability to find Aziraphale easier than before - no more accidentally coming across one another after another century or so passed.

He ran his thumb over the key as it turned, and listened, raptly, to the click of the door unlocking to his request. It was empty but clean, spacious with long hallways and nothing of cramped, dark Hell. His eyes found the wide windows of the sitting room, watched how light spilled in as London’s morning sun crept across the floorboards of the bookshop and burnished the shelves golden. Crowley thought on Aziraphale’s extended invitation, the implication that he could walk up to the bookshop and open the door. There was an unspeakable sensation in knowing that unless Aziraphale was engrossed in another ghastly book, he would be greeted with a smile and fluttering of hands coaxing him to remove his coat and would you prefer wine or tea, my dear?

My dear, my dear. Aziraphale called him _my dear_ now. 

The key was warm in his hand as he thought on Aziraphale standing in the main hallway. As he pictured how light would flood in around him, but he’d only be looking at Crowley.

Would Aziraphale ever agree if Crowley invited him over?

He was not too pleased to find he may have underestimated humanity’s ability to abide by fancy pieces of paper.

The current status of his Sweden-Norway project was classified as ongoing, which meant they were still in the union he never intended to go on this long. A commendation from the Scandinavia-based field agent waited for him on his desk despite no one having roused him from his most recent month-long slumber. Curious, as any demon from Hell would have delighted in doing so. 

He had opened the letter, raised his brow at the prim annotation scrawled within highlighting how the number of politicians his work helped produce is keeping them incredibly busy.

No ‘thank you’, of course, but it was implied.

Great. 

Except now Hell called for more temptations of a similar fashion and were becoming impatient with him going off on these remote, minor temptations of little impact.

Crowley rubbed his temples, threw a glare at the ducks while Aziraphale fed them and talked about a bookseller he was in negotiations with over some poet’s work. He tried to pay attention, really, but his eyes glanced around, behind his shoulder and over Aziraphale’s pale crown of hair at the people nearby.

Did they know Aziraphale was with him now? That his frequent trips weren’t just for temptations but for blessings as well?

Crowley experienced a great deal of torment throughout his existence. The whole demon thing came with the territory. Although nothing Hell can ever do to him matched the agony of Falling, of being cut off from God’s grace and love, they did their best to come close whenever punishment was to be meted out.

He needed insurance from Hell’s inevitable wrath, especially if he were to protect himself and this place he is trying to consider home. Just like Aziraphale wanted for him, way back in Roman times.

“I need a favour.”

Aziraphale will understand his request, Crowley thought as those eyes flicked up to meet his own. Five thousand years between them must mean something.

Too bad that Hell’s got nothing on Aziraphale, however.

“If they knew I’d been—” Aziraphale glanced Heavenwards before darting somewhere south of Crowley’s eyes, struggling for his next words. Crowley failed to brace himself. 

“Fraternising with you, I could be in a lot of trouble.”

Crowley winced, fingers biting into the heavy cane. Aziraphale stared up at Crowley in a way he has never seen before, not even when the angel rebuked him for his numerous temptations and activities. It hung off Aziraphale’s pursed lips, flickered in his narrowed eyes.

Distrust.

Crowley to Aziraphale was the enemy. No matter what transpired between them over these years Crowley might as well have been the sole guilty party here.

“I have lots of _other _people to fraternise with, angel,” Crowley hissed at Aziraphale, wounded. “I don’t need you.”

Aziraphale flinched as though struck, a fist coming up, twisting the thick fabric of his shirt. Crowley halted at the display, at Aziraphale’s wide eyes, his furrowed brow. Not a terribly cruel thing to say, was it? Aziraphale used the same word, the hypocrite. They’ve said worse to each other, anyways. 

Right?

Aziraphale’s jaw clenched, eyes like chipped ice. Crowley barely heard what the angel snapped back over the roaring in his head.

“The feeling is mutual. Obviously,” Aziraphale scowled, turning on his heel without a backwards glance. Crowley does not bother to watch him go, looking into the slow river before him. A duck veered off from the rest of its raft to chase a ripple, then turned back around.

“Obviously,” he mocked. Angels.

Crowley wagered it would be another hundred years or so before he saw Aziraphale again. How many first editions will Aziraphale have acquired by the 1900s, he cannot help wondering.

He took an unnecessary breath, but his chest never expanded in a way that refreshed him. Instead the exhale carried a quiet sigh, almost a name.

When he staggered into the flat later that evening, clothes soaked with foreign cologne and strangers’ sweat, Crowley looked around the unfamiliar place he was trying to call home and found it lacking.

He dropped the cane in the doorway, moved on silent footsteps through each quiet hall and barren room. His eyes lingered on the empty bookshelves lining the sitting room’s northern wall before flicking over to the thick knitted blankets thrown across the settee. To the spotless fireplace.

Out of his view there was a room, empty save for his bed in the centre. Far too big for just him, but with room enough for—

Sneering, Crowley snapped his fingers and vanished it all from the flat and his thoughts.

Crowley heard things, despite his best attempts otherwise. 

Hell sent a memo last week stating he was to remain grounded in London for who knows how long, so he cannot escape this wretched, gossipy city.

The relentless influx of this, coupled with his innate curiosity, and he could not help himself when word reached his ears of a gentleman walking with the _curious _crowds of Soho, London. Dressed always a step behind the rest but as elegant as the finest noble, all tied together by a smile that welcomed anyone with open arms.

Could be said about anyone, really, but Crowley considered only one in particular to match.

Too bad he’s in a stalemate with the other half of the Arrangement who fit that description, not having heard from Aziraphale in about three weeks at this point. The sharp contrast to how they carried on upon Crowley’s return from Sweden, those years spent in and out of one another’s company but always nearby left him with little else to focus on.

So Crowley dripped pretty words into the right people’s ears, pressed a careful palm to the right shoulder, ran fingertips across a receptive cheek and soon enough he swaggered up to Aziraphale’s little club off Portland Place as if he belonged there, dressed more as a highwayman in his tall boots and dark red overcoat.

He nodded his thanks to a gentleman at the door and ducked inside to a posh interior with soft lighting along the walls and couples crowded close, heads bent closer in conversation, and more. The tip of his tongue peeked out to taste the smoky, heady air of the busy club for anything familiar, and found nothing.

Aziraphale was nowhere to be found in this place. 

No matter, he decided, ignoring how disappointment sunk through his stomach to tip his chin in the direction of a group of gentlemen seated by the modest bar. A demon of Crowley’s calibre can make the most of this and he can always find out about Aziraphale from the others here. Should be enough to satisfy his need to know how the angel might be getting along.

Without him.

Opportunity came in the form of the most secluded table in the back already being occupied. He looked young, a little rough and tumble with a carefully crafted refinement about him as Crowley took in his peach fuzzed upper lip, his hastily buttoned waistcoat, the glass of alcohol clenched tightly between sweating palms.

He also looked terribly alone, and suddenly Crowley hated this place and everyone in it.

“Mind if I join you?” Crowley asked, already knowing the answer as he caught interested movement from the table behind him.

“Yes, of course!” The young man almost tripped over himself to make room for the strange tall gentleman sliding into the booth. Crowley raised a hand to request another order of whatever the young man had drunken, the bartender acknowledging with a curt nod.

Crowley turned to the young man, who resolutely stared into his half empty drink instead of at the devilishly handsome gentleman beside him. For a demon with Crowley’s desire for attention, this will not do.

“What brings a handsome chap like you here?”

It does the trick. The young man flushed brilliantly and ducked his head further before he glanced over at Crowley from under thick eyelashes. 

“I just joined yesterday, actually,” he replied with a touch of shyness in his voice.

“Colour me impressed. I heard this is an exclusive club.” Crowley raised a brow, eyes glinting behind his glasses.

He nodded, straightening up a bit under Crowley’s interest in such a way to be considered preening. Crowley looked closer, pupils dilating a hair wider as his eyes jumped across the smudge of grease left on his glass, dark soot under his fingernails. A factory worker, he assumed, product of the working class up north, desperate to find his way in a higher part of society.

No, in a safer part. At least in this particular way.

“Indeed, it took months to get their approval, but several members put in a good word for me. Mister Fell himself even provided a personal recommendation of—”

“You know a Fell?” Crowley interrupted on a low timbre as he watched how a visible shiver ran up the young man’s back, those fine features blooming with heat.

“Why yes, my good sir,” the young man replied in a hitched breath, gaze flickering between Crowley’s shaded eyes and lips that, always one to play the part, his tongue darted across. The young man swallowed thickly, working the long column of his neck. 

“He is an esteemed member of our club, well respected by others; particularly fond of the gavotte classes here, so I’ve heard.”

Crowley leaned into the young man’s space, voice deceptive in its calm. 

“Oh? How nice of him. But I’m not sure most come for the dance routines.” The young man flared bright red, and Crowley continued, sliding a fingertip along the rim of his glass.

“Would you say he’s fond of anything else?” He has no right to ask, he never will, but the thought of Aziraphale partaking in the other activities of this club inflamed a dark, wretched part of him. Were Aziraphale to be going about such business after the judgment he lauded on Crowley.

He blinked, unsure of why he thought that last part. The young man, oblivious to Crowley’s inner battle, took a long sip of his gin to cool fraying nerves.

“Not that I am aware of, sir. Mister Fell is remarkably demure about his personal life.” He glanced around, before his eyes took on a conspiratory glint and leaned closer towards Crowley than might have been necessary. “We think he might already have an _acquaintance_, if you will, that holds his favour.”

Holds his favour.

Bile swam high in his throat as his hands clenched underneath the table, ruining the fine fabric of his trousers. Jealousy was a vicious master, and here it has barrelled straight through defences he never knew to put in place against Aziraphale. To think that Aziraphale, in true angelic hypocrisy, all these years did not have an issue with the whole matter.

Just _Crowley _being the one to do so.

He wanted to march over there and demand an answer. Storm the shop and ask why Aziraphale disapproved of the very behaviour he’s been engaging in, about to do so when the cold water of reality staunched his rage. What would he even find if he went to see Aziraphale after their falling out, knowing Aziraphale has another he’s deemed far more deserving to keep company with?

"Sir?"

In a second his desire to see Aziraphale extinguished as reality rained down upon him. Now, he doesn’t want to risk slinking by the bookshop, a hand raised to knock on the door just to hear the voice of another alongside Aziraphale’s angelic voice. Doesn’t want to endure it as he peered through cloudy windows and found someone else there with Aziraphale. Another talking with him, lounging with him on Crowley’s - no, not his - settee, pouring the angel a glass of wine much sloppier than Crowley ever would, but Aziraphale would still smile.

He does not want to face the truth that everything he thought was his, was never such.

“I see. Thank you for your time,” Crowley goes to stand and leave, not for Aziraphale’s however, not ever again, not with the knowledge he now has that balanced him between blind jealousy and an unfamiliar ache.

The young man’s aborted movement to reach for him gave him pause.

“Oh.”

He looked across the table, eyebrow quirked. The young man’s face fell but he did not look surprised, hands retreated and folded in his lap.

“Forgive me. I merely thought…”

Crowley glanced around from behind his sunglasses at the other patrons going about their business - or pretending to. He could sense intrigue heavy in the dim room, the potential lust for him coursing through their veins, unable to resist the subconscious draw of a demon. Upsetting power dynamics, including human hierarchies, has always been a favourite past time of Crowley’s.

It will be a lovely disturbance for this tight knit group, would it not, if Crowley were to choose one of the newest members to bed over all of them.

No harm in claiming one of Aziraphale’s beloved club members for himself in the spirit of things, then. Another soul to be won for Hell, he will say if anyone bothered to check. He’s not lain with anyone since the Reign of Terror and is well overdue, Crowley reasoned, ignoring how Hell had been flooding his post the past half century with assignments for such things.

It would not impact Aziraphale anyways. He already has someone, the thought crushing through his chest the longer he thought on it.

Crowley refrained from biting through his tongue, before turning back to the disappointed, lost young man. He could not find a better mirror to capture his reflection even if he tried. A hand crept under the table to place long fingers atop the expensive fabric pulled taut across a slim, bouncing knee. Like a heat wave the climate around them changed, and the young man startled, eyes blown wide. They’re blue, Crowley noted. A rich cerulean as though mined from warm Mediterranean waters, but there was something off about the colour. Not quite right.

“I’m glad to see,” Crowley drawled, tongue dragging across his lower lip as he pumped a curling, lustful thought into their contact. “We are of the same mind.” The young man, wild eyed and inflamed, leaned in.

Crowley met him halfway.

By now the other club members know what happened. Watched them head upstairs together with envy in their eyes and are sure to be wagging their tongues for days. Probably could hear through the thin walls of this plain bedroom, hear it pour into the bar below, out through the streets as the man under him shamelessly sobbed with pleasure.

Once again, no sense in bothering to get a name. He won’t be making a place for himself here in this bed and young man’s body. Even as blunt nails dig into his thighs and slender hips rocked back to meet each one of Crowley’s hard thrusts, encouraged him to stay deep, stay closer. 

_Stay._

Crowley swayed at the force of it, heart pounding in his chest as desire flood into his body from the young man’s tumultuous, desperate spirit.

He ignored the pathetic cry of alarm that pierced the air as he pulled out and wasted no time in flipping the young man over. A feral grin, all teeth, split his face at the curtain of dark brown hair fanned out over sweat soaked pillows, lust-hazed eyes shut in bliss. With a rough grip he yanked those trembling legs around his hips and growled at the howl he tore from the young man.

Driving this pleasure-delirious human into the rattling bed was his sole purpose for now. His back clawed to a sheer mess of frantic red marks, his neck torn to pieces by desperate bites from someone who has never known all-consuming desire and he thrived on it, let it fuel him deeper, harder.

Crowley gave him everything he can, everything he has never gotten and never will receive. He fucked him for hours until the image of a soft angel embraced by a _favoured acquaintance_ was nothing but a distant thought.

Only to wind up coming with the wrong shade of blue staring up at him.

His uniform has been staunched with blood since the first day of battle, and his hands trembled too much to snap any of it away.

Waking up in a new century with orders from Hell posted on his door telling him to get to the trenches and kick up some trouble _had _to be punishment for the Sweden-Norway union. Not his fault it had taken a whole century to dissolve, having done so in such an amicable manner.

Unfortunately for Hell, there was very little trouble a demon could kick up here. They did not care though, and he is here now, trapped in this place neither hell nor damnation, just war.

Horrific, human war.

Crowley was a month into the what Hell claimed would be called the Somme Offensive when the first mortar shell hit the front line trench his fellow expeditionary forces were firing from. Only he found his way out of the mess, barely managed to run fast enough to avoid discorporation on legs nearly frozen stiff from the icy cold mud. He could not remember any of their names despite living in this death corridor beside them all this time, and for the first time in his existence, he wished he could.

There were no bodies to pull tags from, no mention in the casualty reports, another statistic as they were thrown back into the meat grinder. He did not sleep for the next three weeks, clutching his gun and a tenuous grip on why he was even here fighting a war no demon should want to see won by the _good guys_.

As a flurry of mortar shells are launched in his direction - the enemy no doubt aware he is one of the last on this part of the defensive - Crowley wondered after an angel back in England. To stop himself from an emotional ache adding to the physical ache he carried, Crowley brought a shaking hand to his left breast, rubbed his fingers over the rough, wet fabric to feel his reason why in the crinkle of plastic wrap where the letter was safely tucked away.

Safe, just as Aziraphale needed to stay.

He steadied himself in time with a deep mortal breath and aimed his rifle at a figure moving through the smoke.

It was dark out, the battle has shifted away from the trench lines and so they are on the move. He had offered to take first watch but planned on covering the whole night so his counterparts could sleep. Humans need it more than he does.

With eyes blown fully golden, pupils dilated beyond usual capacity he fumbled the letter out from his coat, unfolded it with reverent care so not to tear the well-worn paper.

Throughout the cold night he read it three times, savoured with greedy, demonic need each curving loop of the copperplate handwriting that spoke of a time far more peaceful than now. As his eyes traced the last dainty swirl of Aziraphale’s signature, they closed at last, body warmer than the thin blanket around his shoulders should merit.

Overhead, the wail of sirens bled into his ears and distant mortar shells rocked the ground, but before he must open his eyes and pick up his rifle Crowley was back in Soho, London. He was knocking on the old wooden door of a bookshop he’d give anything to be invited to one more time.

Across from him would be an angel who smiled up at him, as if there was nowhere better for him to be.

Someone has prayed here, recently.

Crowley smelled the candle fire over the flesh of his burning feet, blistering now as he hopped along the dimly illuminated, consecrated ground and through doors his hands are forbidden from touching. His shoes are soaked. Iron tanged each footstep, potent enough he had locked his tongue behind his teeth lest he gag on how strong the taste-smell of his own blood was. Slogging in the trenches almost thirty years ago taught him the hard lesson of how impossible it was to numb oneself to certain smells.

An un-demonic shudder ran through him and he pressed a hand to his slick brow to wipe the sweat and thoughts away. Minutes ticked by as he let the ring of mortar shells in his head fade and the burning prayer candles came back into focus.

Right.

Intelligence warned him of a clandestine meeting between several high-profile Nazi party members, and he was to intercept the meeting. Eliminate anyone else that saw him and leave no traces of him having even been there. Routine work, he's done it plenty of times before.

In the distance, echoing along the solemn stone walls of this church, he suddenly heard voices. Human, reasonable enough, until they were followed by the high lilt of an angelic voice. Familiar, said the rising pound of his heartbeat. His pace picked up into longer, painful strides.

He’s never been good at following orders.

“What are you doing here?”

“Stopping you from getting into trouble.” Just as he did back in Babylon, and in Wessex, and in Paris, and in...

Aziraphale’s expression hardened, his hands clenched. “I should have known, of course. These people are working for you.”

It doesn’t stop, does it. Aziraphale assuming the worst of him no matter what. Getting ridiculous now, really.

Crowley grimaced as he leaned against a pew, the varnished wood searing the first layer of skin clean off his palm. He ignored it as he defended himself, warned them all of the bomb he’s about to drop on them, but mostly Aziraphale. Only Aziraphale.

“It would take a _real_ miracle for my friend and I to survive it.”

Soon enough came the whistle of his promise and he was thirty years ago, alone in those trenches once more as a tremor rocked through him. Desperate for one last look, just as he had been back then, Crowley turned to find Aziraphale already staring at him, and he was caught by how the candlelight flickered in waves across the angel.

Crowley did not take his eyes off of him even as his vision went white.

“Lift home?” _Home, where you should be._

Crowley watched Aziraphale climb into the passenger seat of the Bentley, knowing to wait a second or two and let Aziraphale sort himself out, as he always must when in a new situation. Aziraphale did prefer being ever so particular about things, even adjusted his waistcoat as he looked around the vehicle.

If someone drove Aziraphale around while Crowley slept, well, no one had as nice a car as him. Especially not with bombs dropping over England like this. His scalded hand trembled as it closed the door but Aziraphale does not notice, a small mercy if there ever was one.

“To the bookshop, angel?” Crowley asked, hushed in the quiet of the car, turning to face Aziraphale. Outside air raid sirens wail along the city limits, but for now they are safe.

Aziraphale glanced at him from under pale lashes before looking heavenwards, then out to the streets. He shifted noisily against the leather seat, a nervous energy to him Crowley had not seen in some time. It is the sort of air Aziraphale fretted about with whenever he struggled to decide if a book was worth buying. Which does not make sense to Crowley, as the books he wanted were already in his possession. What else could be wrong?

He should ask, opened his mouth to do so.

“My dear, I have been wondering,” Aziraphale began and unwittingly silenced Crowley. His throat bobbed, as though it were a lifesaver over a rough ocean wave. His twitchy hands tapped against his thighs to a rhythm he did not share with Crowley, and all Crowley wanted was to lead him along through it, regardless.

He idled the car in the dim of a flickering street lantern where its long shadows cut Aziraphale’s curved features into geometric parts, his face lost somewhere in that sharpness. Crowley's stomach tensed as he resisted the urge to lean closer and provide some form of reassurance that only a demon fraternising with an angel they considered their friend would try to give. Human fingertips give way to claws that bite into the damp fabric of his trousers. 

Never, he will _never_. Not until Aziraphale invited him back into his life.

Aziraphale took a breath and turned to Crowley, eyes stormy with everything Crowley cannot comprehend, but he stared back, nonetheless. Another breath passed between them, and whose Crowley was not sure this time.

Soft blue eyes dropped a little bit further down Crowley's face, then away.

“Yes, to the bookshop.”

It was going to be a disaster, but he’s out of options at this point.

Shadwell’s alright, if a bit of an oddball. Confident and handsome, he’d certainly give the man, those two fine traits Crowley liked in the humans he ran with. No need for the witch hunting offer, but Crowley strolled away from the conversation with the thought he might take Shadwell up on a _different_ offer sometime.

The notion bandied around in his mind as he walked towards the Bentley, and as he climbed behind the wheel, he was ready to head after the self-proclaimed witch hunter when his wings fluttered in the other dimension.

He turned.

Aziraphale sat in the passenger seat looking at him, pale tousled curls framing his soft face, his ever-present nervous smile tilting the corners of his mouth.

Nothing else mattered all of a sudden.

Over twenty years have passed since he last saw Aziraphale, but his dreams were crafted around that night in the Bentley. The horrors of war had begun to slip away as his memories instead crystallised around each shape cut along Aziraphale, well enough to measure each angles’ degrees and see if he could build a house out of them somehow. Abstract architecture is in nowadays, unlike all those years ago.

Aziraphale never was one to keep up with the times, though. Even as those familiar patterns divide him in red neon light and concealed Crowley in darkness.

“After everything you said?”

Aziraphale tensed, the air in the Bentley seemed to chill until he gave a jerk of a nod, refusing to look at Crowley as he did so.

Crowley opened then closed his mouth, stunned.

“Should I say thank you?”

“Better not,” Aziraphale smiled, a glum slice through his face, eyes darting to the thermos in Crowley’s hand, down to his own soft hands. He ended up looking back out to the brightly illuminated streets where Crowley did his prowling whenever he was struck by the urge to visit Aziraphale but ultimately decided against it, whenever his flat does not feel right. Both happened far more often than before.

His eyes are heavy, he looked tired in a way Crowley had never seen before. Do angels ever rest? 

Forget the others, does _this _one?

It is a small relief, that his eyes need to be obscured. Aziraphale by now would have chided him for his unblinking tendencies, eyes that deserved their namesake as Crowley sat and watched Aziraphale, those soft lips parted, the rise and fall of his chest not a conscious effort, so it seemed.

Never before has Crowley thought of Aziraphale this way, but once it was there, he could not stop.

“Well, can I take you anywhere?” Back to the bookshop, where he belonged and perhaps, they can even go inside for a drink and catch up like they used to.

“No, thank you.”

Crowley’s sharp thumb accidentally clicked against the thermos and he hissed in apology when Aziraphale startled out of his dialogue of dining at the Ritz, someday, lidded eyes flickered towards Crowley. If Aziraphale needed to catch up on some sleep, Crowley would take him somewhere.

A hotel? No, too impersonal. His flat? He has a bed there, exquisitely comfortable thing. Perfect place for teaching Aziraphale how to rest, with room enough for—

“I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go.” _Anywhere, and along the way please let me find a word to call this feeling I have for you that is moving everything around me._

Aziraphale looked up with wide, blue eyes and refused as Crowley always knew he would. Then broke his wretched heart as Crowley never knew he could.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

As the door shut with a muted, final click he yanked his sunglasses off, and in the rear-view mirror, red-rimmed snake eyes stared back at him.

No luck indeed.

Crowley sat in his car the entire night on that neon stained street as the overwhelming pressure of England, staying in England, and what staying in England after _that_ meant began to close in around him.

So, he left.

He raced across the Atlantic in the cargo hold of a ship he does not know the name of, carried with him nothing but himself. The Revolutionary War had been about to kick off the last time he was here getting completely drunk on cheap American alcohol and asking the locals about the tea tax being kind of high don’t you all think so, no, just me?

It has changed quite a lot he is pleased to find. Different in ways that mattered right now.

Namely, there’s nothing of London here anymore unlike when this was a new country. Nothing of an angel that refused to look him in the eye when he once again let Crowley know that no matter what he does, save his life or bare his heart, it will never be the right thing. Aziraphale’s opinion of him has never changed, not from Roman times, not from long before.

_You go too fast for me._

No, Aziraphale was not here, and there was no Arrangement to contend with.

However, there are lonely people. Countless.

Crowley fucked his way through every state this side of the Mississippi River, searched for relief in the arms and bodies of more people than he knew could exist. Woodstock rolled around during his stop up north and was a roaring success in both chaos and debauchery. All of it drowned out Aziraphale’s words as well as every drug he pumped through his veins.

When the party ended and he sobered up, he grew desperate, found some of Hell’s backlogged targets in roadside bars and dark alleyways. He washed himself in truck stops, slept on dirty train station floors in his own embrace to remind himself that there was no home to be made here in any of their arms, not even his own.

It worked in keeping Aziraphale’s sad, disappointed eyes away. Until it didn’t anymore. 

Crowley slumped over a broken sink when it stopped working as he gave up trying to scrub his lube-slicked hands raw in another dimly lit gas station bathroom. His slitted pupils jumped across his harsh reflection under the flickering fluorescent light, listless and wrong as he stared into the cracked mirror and realised once again that he is in a place he did not belong, with a longing no one wanted from him.

He went back to washing his hands, dried himself off, and tried again. Soon enough he knows he will be glad he did.

Because there in some busy, restless city that doesn’t notice one lone demon on its streets, Crowley would stumble across a bar unlike any other in his journey so far.

In this bar, the first and last time he walked through its door, sat a man with soft features behind squared glasses and sporting so impeccably buttoned up a paisley shirt that it compelled an appreciative whistle. Good taste indeed, and Crowley has sampled a wide array of American styles by now.

The American man watched a sequin-ribbed singer croon their way through a broken heart on stage. He sat with a familiar upright posture, and Crowley could not help but take a spot next to him, slouched deep in his own seat.

In silence with the other patrons they listened to song after song. Drink after drink went down Crowley’s throat, his mood lifting, falling as the music played late into the night. This comfortable, welcoming atmosphere broke when a flash of lightning beamed in from the bar’s windows, and the thunder roaring in behind it drew everyone’s attention except for one person.

Instead, the American man looked over to Crowley, took him in before he had the chance to react. His fingers tightened around his drink as he kept his expression flat in the wake of the other’s scrutiny. Neither of them looked away as the man smiled, a slow curve along his face.

“Might want to head out soon,” the man’s voice was gentle, eyes even more so.

“Before the rain picks up.”

Crowley fell into his first bed of the whole trip, watched this strange man writhe down against his upward thrusts with a tinge of awe. Both of them are bathed in the bluish-purple light from outside this rundown apartment, the man moving in and out of shadow. Their rising moans are lost with the pouring rain as their backdrop, but Crowley can hear the man’s rapid heartbeat thundering between them. 

The man’s long hair cascaded like a wave as his head fell forward in ecstasy. It felt like he had been in the desert for forty days and nights and Crowley drank it down, unable to stop from consuming everything given.

In true demonic fashion Crowley accepted the man’s offering without restraint, demanded more of anything, everything he can take from him. Long fingers became a vice grip on the man’s hips, claws threatening to break through his tenuous control at the desperate edge Crowley’s movements take on, but not once does it seem like the man hates it. All he responded with was to hold onto him tighter, moan louder into the darkness, unabashed in his want for Crowley.

As a shudder racked through Crowley the man surged forward, pressed their mouths together in a wet, desperate slide. Through the man’s lust a mantra of _stay, stay, stay _rushed into Crowley’s mind and he muffled the desperate groan threatening to tear from his own throat. 

Everything he’d once longed to hear from Aziraphale poured out of this stranger’s sweat-drenched body, from the trembling cradle of his thighs. Crowley gasped into the air between them, helpless against the unstoppable tide.

This time, he eagerly let himself drown. 

Outside, in the early hours of morning, the storm continued to rain down upon the windows when Crowley awoke still in bed. A first, if he had any of those left.

Blinking away the last remnants of sleep, Crowley lay there and listened. The bustling streets below were already loud and alive this early, the distant thunder rumbled on the outskirts of this unusual city. There was something missing in the noise, but he cannot place what.

Sitting up as the sheets fall to his lap, he took a good look around, and concluded the apartment as not that bad a place to have fallen asleep. An old desk under the window drew his eye, piled high with paper and textbooks, while along the wall leaned several large canvases, some filled some not. Were there time he might look through them. Art intrigued Crowley after all, no other concept was so purely a human form of creation.

His nose filled with kicked up dust and the nip of oil paint’s lingering fumes, but he does not find it as awful as he expected it to be. It was familiar, in a sense. The clutter soothed some deeply neglected part of his psyche as Crowley let himself linger for the briefest moment until he looked over to the sleeping man and reality crept in.

Crowley was overstayed in this bed, in this country, a stranger that should have left long ago. He rubbed at his temple, losing the battle against a rising headache.

Where can he go next?

Should he crawl back to his gloomy Mayfair flat and dodge the angelic object of his excruciatingly pathetic heartache until kingdom come? Heavens, the idea depressed even him but for now if it’s his remaining option, he has to take it.

Heaving an unnecessary sigh Crowley made to leave when the man rolled over, a lax arm thrown across Crowley’s lean waist that paused his retreat without any real pressure. Gentle eyes peek open, his sleep-soaked face illuminated by a smile at Crowley’s surprised expression. He looked _happy _to see Crowley still in bed with him, at his side.

Had the man always been this beautiful, Crowley cannot help but wonder, or was it just in the light of day?

“Morning,” the man whispered, shifting closer and Crowley let himself burrow back down underneath the covers into that comfortable warmth.

_Stay, stay, stay _flowed through the man’s skin into his own, a slow, rolling wave compared to last night’s storm. Crowley’s hand finds its way to the man’s cheek as though he was always meant to rest his fingertips there. How soft.

The man moved his arm up to stroke the flat planes of Crowley’s chest. A calloused thumb - so unlike the parchment smooth texture of a scholar’s - played against the sparse hairs dotting his pale skin, his scales longing to surface under the man’s touch. He simply stared over the mismatched pillows at Crowley, unperturbed by the yellow hue of his eyes, the terrible reminder of what he never could hide from anyone.

Like last night he does not look away, so Crowley did not blink.

The hand left his chest. Reached up to push mussed auburn hair off his pillow-creased cheek to match Crowley’s own gesture. Crowley forced himself to keep breathing, to calm the hammer of his heart.

“Want to stay for breakfast?”

**40 Years Later.**

England never changed in a way he’d like.

Decades have passed the country by since he was last here and yet he inhaled the same damp, cold air he knows to be unique to London. A cough rattled his chest after taking so deep a breath; nowadays too used to the tedium of functioning lungs, of mundane human habits.

As his feet hit the street pavement of Soho, London he could hardly feel the rain against his skin, numbness having settled all the way down to his marrow. He blinked to block the rain from getting into his eyes, and continued down each street, tried to remember what they were before and if he liked what they were now.

Crowley remembered popping over the Atlantic to here back in the eighties for the M25 construction deal, a feat which drip-fed Hell low grade, wide scope temptations and caused all sorts of delightful misdeeds. Even earned him a commendation directly from Satan himself to the rest of Hell’s ire. Commendations were frequent for him at this point though, all he had cared about at the time was the award having the side benefit of allowing him to continue his life in America uninterrupted. No one dared bother Satan’s favourite - if anyone could be called so - should he put in a request to while away some decades on a loose tour of duty.

But his time in America was up, that well long ran dry. Nothing came with him when he boarded that London-bound plane except the cling of failure, the stench of death.

How he ended up outside of Aziraphale’s bookshop and not his flat was beyond him. With not even a quick check on the Bentley first, he was standing in the middle of this empty, rainy street staring up at a bookshop that’s gone unchanged for two centuries.

He looked closer through the rain to see the burning glow of a light from behind the curtained windows.

Aziraphale was home.

Snapping his fingers took a couple of tries due to the slipperiness of the rain, but the front door opened with a satisfying click. Aziraphale must have forgotten to revoke his access to the shop, he assumed, but let the rain wash any pain over the thought away.

Overhead the shop’s bell chimed, sweet as ever. On stiff legs he stepped over the threshold and into the warmth of a familiar haven as if he’s walked back through time.

Immediately he heard footsteps.

“Crowley?”

How lovely his name sounded in Aziraphale’s mouth, what a place to reside.

“Where have you _been_, Crowley?” Crowley did not bother to answer the question as he looked around the alight bookshop. Additions have been made, some stacks shifted around, while others reorganized. He can almost feel their spines under his fingertips, wonders what Aziraphale has to tell him about each one. His tongue flicked into the air as he tastes the musty tang of moth balls and aged vellum and a dozen other smells. All combined together to remind him of Aziraphale and a concept he has not known for millennia.

“Crowley! What is going on—”

Crowley looked over, and whatever he showed halted Aziraphale mid-sentence, a hand caught halfway in the air as if reaching for him. That soft face Crowley could never forget stared directly at him as it fell from plain consternation to open concern under the glow of the bookshop’s lights.

Forty years gone, and Aziraphale stood there as he always has, his silly waistcoat hung off the ever-polite set of his sloping shoulders, his white-blond curls ruffled as though hands have clutched at it.

He’s gained weight, Crowley noted with an appreciative purr that warred against the ache in his chest, both threatening to rumble into the open air. Just a smidgen, even more perhaps, but Crowley can pick out exactly where it settled along Aziraphale’s body. It’s an absolutely fetching addition to the already soft angel but it gnawed right through his stomach, all those dinners and desserts and bottles of wine missed far too many times.

Did Aziraphale resent him for not being there? Had he found others to partake with or did he eat alone? Was Crowley ever in his thoughts when he dined during the long years?

All at once, Crowley was hit with the gravity of what has been lost.

That night forty years ago, as the neon glow carved Aziraphale’s face into the walls of Crowley’s chest, he had asked too much of the angel as he always has. His friendship, his time, the unattainable angelic love Crowley had decided right then and there that he selfishly wanted from Aziraphale more than anything, more than a thermos of holy water.

_Anywhere you want to go. Just please say it's with me._

Could Aziraphale ever forgive him for what he’s done to them?

Crowley took a step away from his tortuous questions, always with the questions, and one towards Aziraphale, who flushed a delicate pink as his well-manicured hands clasped in front of him, thumbs twiddling under a dropped gaze. The poor creature was so uncomfortable with a prodigal demon darkening his doorstep it made Crowley burn with shame. He knew he should not be here, but there is so much he needed to tell Aziraphale. How he missed him, how arriving on America’s shores could never hold up to the feeling of walking into this bookshop Aziraphale called home.

All that came out of his mouth was—

“Angel.”

Crowley refused to talk until he was on his third glass of wine. He said as much to a surprisingly obliging, if distant Aziraphale.

In staggering contrast to their usual routine, Aziraphale served himself tea, and for once he did not chide Crowley about having his feet on the table. He set them back on the floor regardless.

Aziraphale remained silent when Crowley talked, provided none of the usual interruptions that seasoned their banter. He merely sat across from Crowley, upright and stiff, the teacup halfway to his thinned mouth, but Crowley cannot stop the words once they happen. They might be in their usual chairs as though decades have not passed, but Crowley saw the chasm yawning wide between them and wondered if Aziraphale saw it too.

It took hours.

He told Aziraphale about America, about the man he met there, about the life they shared together. He even told him about the home he tried to make, like Aziraphale did, and he is certain it is a trick of his drunken mind when Aziraphale appeared to flinch.

Nearly forty years of it, he continued, unable to keep awe out of his voice. Crowley has never done anything for forty years, never stayed in one place for so long.

Aziraphale looked as though he was about to be sick after he said it and Crowley reined himself in to spare them both. There was so much he wanted to tell Aziraphale, even as his tongue felt thick in his mouth, but he swallowed the words, too choked up to say them in the wake of Aziraphale’s disgust towards his behaviour.

Nothing of days and nights together, the mundane yet incredible details of what it means to truly love another, to spend life with someone. To be happy and make the one at your side just as happy. And Crowley had been happy, happier than a demon had any right to be.

Until he wasn’t.

Is there a way he can tell Aziraphale how much it hurt to witness the relentless march of old age, the unstoppable crush of illness. Did you know humans can fight their own bodies on sheer will alone? Death will still show up right next to their bedside and wait like the absolute bastard they are but how amazing is that, Aziraphale. Can he share with Aziraphale what it meant to have those precious last few years, which could have - should have - been happy, instead be spent in a cold hospital surrounded by grave-faced doctors? About years of not sleeping because demons do not sleep unless they are named Crowley and happened to be lying beside the one person who actually wanted them there?

How about the fact that once he returned from the funeral to the oppressively empty apartment he lived within for decades, laid himself down in the bed he once dared to call his own, that all he could think about was how badly he failed at building a home like Aziraphale managed to so easily do throughout the years. How at times in the darkest corners of his heart, Crowley wondered of what it would be like if he was doing this across the ocean with someone completely different.

Long after he finished talking Aziraphale remained quiet, eyes never moved from their focus on the floor space by Crowley’s crossed legs. Crowley wanted to drink back in every word he’d poured into Aziraphale’s ears, this vulnerability enough to make him sick to his stomach.

Aziraphale already knew all this. He must, from his time with his favoured acquaintance centuries ago and who knows how many before and after that. While Crowley lived overseas there has been more since then, without a doubt. He attracted good people wherever he went, Aziraphale was that kind of angel.

How stupid, Crowley berated himself as every drop of energy leaked out of him, to think any of this would be new to Aziraphale. To think Aziraphale would see Crowley’s effort in this roughshod attempt at being something worth Aziraphale’s friendship.

Aziraphale brought a hand to his mouth, and took a deep breath. As Crowley sat there across from him, he braced for whatever the angel deemed him to deserve.

“Did you—” Aziraphale pressed his knuckles to his lips, exhaled around them. “Are you going back?”

Crowley stiffened, looking up into Aziraphale’s eyes, or tried to as Aziraphale remained fixated on the floor, hand pressed firm against his lips as though he wanted to say far more. Truly an angel, not willing to berate Crowley the way he must want to for having played as such with one of the Almighty’s Children, he thought with no small amount of grimace.

Instead of replying he leaned forward to let his elbows drop onto his legs and hands fall together in front of him as he gathered his thoughts from the swirling pattern of the bookshop’s well-worn wood grain floorboards. He noticed for the first time how different the heart-lines of his palms are. One perfectly straight like a knife wound, the other jagged and splintered in the middle. He took a deep breath as though he might pull the scent of antiseptic from his fingertips where turpentine once soaked his skin, taste the rubbery tang of latex gloves no doubt having seeped into these grooves sliced across his hands.

He thought of how calloused fingertips long scrubbed clean of paint pressed against his cheek, of the papery thin skin atop the last hand he ever held before it went limp in his grasp.

A failure to do what Aziraphale had done so readily without Crowley, he had tried and lost it all in the end, like he always did.

“Nothing for me to go back to, angel.”

Mercifully Aziraphale remained silent, face shadowed. The tea in his bone-white hand was probably ice cold but he took a long sip, nonetheless.

Crowley leaned back against the couch, and as he took an even deeper breather, he was struck by the scent of a cologne he’d worn back in the 1960s wafting through the air. His chest shivered with the inhalation until he spotted the curling wisp of smoke from Aziraphale’s incense burner over in the corner. After a moment of staring at it he shook off the spicy sandalwood fragrance, so different than what Aziraphale used to burn, and the painful memories along with it.

“How’d you handle it, every time?” Aziraphale looked up startled as his brows knit together. A high flush coloured his face as though caught out, and he looked off to the side.

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

Crowley stood and swayed on his feet, ignoring Aziraphale’s distressed noise. An angel would never consider this the same, now that he had a moment to think on it. He now understood why Aziraphale disapproved of him behaving in such ways, but not himself. Nothing he did could ever compare to an angel’s celebrations of humanity, to Aziraphale’s love for another.

_Were you happy, can I at least know that?_

“Forget it. I’ll leave you be.” He walked out of the shop, hurriedly pulling his coat over his shoulders. If Aziraphale called after him it was lost before it ever reached his ears.

Outside the shop and soaked by pouring rain he reached for the handle of a Bentley that, were anyone out this late, would think it to have appeared out of thin air. If he let his fingertips linger for one moment, a single breath’s worth, before throwing the door open, only he needed to know.

Not even a year later, amidst paperwork Crowley was avoiding for settling the now dissolved estate he’d left behind in America, a summons from Hell burned atop the one photo he had kept of a man seen only in his dreams now.

That night, the Antichrist was upon the earth.

It was different in a way Crowley could not explain.

Working alongside Aziraphale never happened in the past, during the Arrangement. They would take turns, more often than not Crowley would be the one making any trips outside of England. He tried a joint exercise back during the whole Sweden-Norway idea, but Aziraphale declined so here they are, year after short year in contact almost every day.

When they meet again, there was no mention of what transpired a year before, as if it never occurred. Of Crowley baring his sins to his friend and Aziraphale unable to hide his endless disappointment in him.

Instead, their focus was on the raising of the Anti-Christ, a leveraging of the Arrangement in no way that has ever bound them together before.

They will be sitting together, in cafés, in parks, talking and comparing notes about young Warlock and the progress they are making. Even though where they meet changes constantly, a familiarity has seeped into Crowley that he cannot place. Not in all their time on this earth have they spent so much time together, day in and day out for these few short years. Today they had officially retired as tutors in the Dowling household and Crowley wanted to commemorate his ability to teach Warlock about macroeconomics without Aziraphale knowing until it was too late. The angel was not as angry over the matter as Crowley expected he would be, however, so he keeps quiet.

He watched Aziraphale flip through a little notebook to check off some nonsense while Crowley sprawled atop his chair, ears attuned to the street noise around them, more so to the light scratch of a pen across paper. Crowley remembered in contrast how a soft-bristled paintbrush sounded against canvas, the scrape of an easel across worn floorboards. Frowning, he rubbed at his chest against the aching emotions that weighed him down. Aziraphale gave a chiding comment about Warlock dictating liquidity preferences to him the other day and Crowley grinned wide as he responded with what he thought to be a witty remark.

Suddenly, the foggy, grey world around them seemed brighter.

“Now that it’s done, I suppose we wait,” Aziraphale said, closing his little notebook to look out at the rainy streets of this quiet autumn afternoon, at the strolling humans who let them be guests in their world.

Aziraphale, like he is doing now, often lingered at their meeting place. Crowley knew when it happened, more predictable than London traffic at rush hour. The angel paused to take in the changing scenery around them, comment on a topic of interest he found with in the latest book to grace his shop’s shelves. When he does so, Crowley will settle further into his sprawl, follow the walks of humanity as they passed their table by. If Aziraphale planned to stay put he might as well, and perhaps Aziraphale will even be okay with him staying. He has missed far too many of these moments, struggled to recoup his losses as they raced against Armageddon’s clock.

A reasonable enough excuse he could tell himself, and Aziraphale too, were the angel ever inclined to ask. Aziraphale asked him less nowadays compared to the millennia before, and Crowley finds the reprieve… not welcome. Crowley knew better than to ask anything more of Aziraphale than what the angel gave him, though.

This was enough, to be here with him as the world moved around them.

They will sit for a moment before Crowley ordered something for Aziraphale to eat. When their order arrives Crowley will watch Aziraphale delight over his confection, not touching his coffee as a claw plays with the cup handle. As time progressed, eventually Aziraphale’s soft, pink mouth will open and close several times in a manner unbecoming of a proper angel.

He will wait like always, not breathing as Aziraphale faltered before he took another bite of his dessert or a sip of his tea, whatever he might have tried to say gone.

Were Aziraphale a human Crowley would have reached out, touched him in uncoordinated but earnest comfort so that Aziraphale did not struggle in giving his thoughts voice. Neither of them is human, though, and he does not have time to wonder about Aziraphale’s unspoken words, not when Earth is teetering on the edge of oblivion. Crowley, all those years ago, might have had it coming, but Aziraphale does not deserve anything of the sort. Everything Aziraphale wanted was on Earth. Crowley will do whatever he can to ensure he never knew what it meant to lose a home, never lose anything.

So now, when Aziraphale took a deep breath to start the process over again, Crowley interrupted his coming words with an off-colour remark and changed the subject.

How does a demon tell an angel they love them?

They are one day from the end of the world. Crowley has been at the third alternative rendezvous point for an hour now looking up at the cloudy skies overhead.

On some planets it rained diamonds, here it rained water. Whether for crops or floods depends on one’s luck that day. Crowley considered those planets, the ones without water, then an Earth without Aziraphale. How lifeless they were.

Crowley cannot sense love. The natural tide of such emotions never rose to meet a demon’s wading steps. He could try forever and the glow of love would never warm his chest. Yet, as humans know a black hole spun the centre of their Milky Way galaxy by how matter moves around it, so too does he now know - beyond all things - his love for Aziraphale lived right inside his chest by how it moved him. Just the way it moved him almost fifty years ago in the form a thermos of holy water.

Aziraphale’s shoes clacked on the stone walkway as he approached, but Crowley does turn. Not yet.

Even if it was not there, if whatever _is _there was merely a figment of his overactive, un-demonic imagination, then he chose to love Aziraphale through sheer insistence alone. Forge it out of his own willpower like he hammered the stars into existence from nothing countless eternities ago.

Aziraphale walked up into the bandstand, his pale overcoat rumpled, face worn and aged, and Crowley does not need a mathematical equation to prove how the black hole in his chest he labelled love spun him absolutely lightheaded at the sight before him.

It moved him through the entire argument.

“You can’t leave, Crowley.” Yes, he can actually, he excelled in leaving. Top marks.

His footsteps halt, nonetheless, and he spun on one heel back to Aziraphale and his stricken face white as a sheet, hands clenched at his sides. It’s unbearable in a way that two thousand years ago it had not been, to see Aziraphale so wounded.

Crowley offered his best, the option of a new home. For them both even, he’d have that again if Aziraphale agreed to it. Somewhere safe and a place Crowley knew well, he’d built it after all.

“Go off - together?”

Why does Aziraphale look at him like that? What has he said wrong this time to warrant such wide, storm-logged eyes?

“How long have we been friends? Six thousand _years_.”

He has never had anything last that long, but he is glad it happened to be Aziraphale.

“I don’t even like you!”

Crowley knew Aziraphale lied to him. About more than this, about a lot of things, and for once it is a comfort to know this too was a lie.

“You _do_.”

This isn't the time and place for their usual back and forth. Crowley wanted them away from this doomed planet they made a life on and out to stars he helped make with his former cadre before they all Fell for loving their own creation more than God.

_I know nothing compares to Heaven or your bookshop but give me the chance to find you a new home and I promise it will be worthy._ He wanted to plead even as he spoke other words and stepped closer, about beg on knees having not touched the earth in so many millennia. For Aziraphale, even as he built this wall between them brick by brick, he would.

How does he tell Aziraphale he loves him?

“We’re on _our_ side.”

Their voices are rising but he will not go. Not yet. Despite every habit and instinct he possessed, he will not go unless Aziraphale is with him—

“It’s over!”

Crowley turned, a loss so tangible his ribs thrummed with the echoes of his aching, beating heart. He cannot speak. He is not Lot’s wife, who could not help but take one last glance at whatever she stopped for when he hissed in her ear, _‘Won’t you miss it?’._

_‘Yes’_, she had said and turned, but he does not look back, already lost.

Where can he go, with Armageddon on his doorstep? The globe spun under his fingertips, astronomy book on his desk shedding its pages like grains of sand through an hourglass.

America’s out. He does not think of America, he will not ever again.

Crowley shouted up at the silent vigil of God and rolled through history for an answer to the questions he still had, for the solution he hated himself for knowing lay somewhere in the past he’s abandoned.

It came at him in waves. His American man with soft eyes, the lonely young worker in the gentlemen’s club, the French revolutionaries and nobility alike, the talented actor in the Globe Theatre, the noble in Petronius’ restaurant. On and on it went until all their faces blurred together into nothing he could pinpoint. There are thousands, tens of thousands, all with names he’s never cared to know - he could have made a home in any of them.

_…It’s just down the road. Which I am, in fact._

So where is it?

It’s one thing to rob Crowley of a home. Been thousands of years since and he’s gotten over it, certainly. Another thing entirely to burn Aziraphale’s to the ground taking him with it.

_I should have stayed._

Heavy footsteps had dragged him to a bar filled with people blissfully unaware of how their lives will soon end in agony. Crowley sat there for hours drinking and staring out the window. Tunnel vision faced the busy street as he ignored the cooing eyes of potential temptations, the sympathetic glances from the bartender as he polished off another bottle. As he pled his case to the air, his tongue caught the scent of smoke and charred history as it clung to his skin.

At least this time the world will end in flames, since his just did.

“Crowley?”

He looked up.

Crowley let himself enjoy the calm before the storm while it lasted. Aziraphale sat next to him on the old bench, merciful in his oblivion and unaware of the tremors of relief - or was it exhaustion - that raced through Crowley’s limbs.

Aziraphale took the offered bottle from him, and to his mute surprise the angel did not manifest a wineglass. Crowley felt the dry wine slide down his own throat, so intently he watched Aziraphale’s lips wrap around the bottle’s rim.

“It burned down, remember?” I’m sorry, he wanted to say as Aziraphale’s eyes turned murky in the dim streetlights. I know what it is like to lose everything. I didn’t want that for you.

“You can stay at my place, if you’d like.”

Aziraphale paused, unnaturally still, before looking back over at Crowley, and he waits as the angel’s thoughts turn. He has looked at him this way before, in the 1940s, the same wide eyes. He protested with a nervous grin, as Crowley knows he is wont to do, but for once, he can understand. The need to cling to something stable when the earth has been swept out from under you.

Crowley knew, just as he knew Aziraphale would need something else to take its place. Lights flashed in the distance, and with enough energy for both of them, Crowley stepped into the role he's filled for years as they boarded a bus headed back to London.

“Here we are,” Crowley said, hands out in supplication. He never has people over, what is the proper protocol here?

Aziraphale blinked up at him, unseeing in the darkness, before he took a step over the threshold but no further, hands fluttering at his sides. It is enough, Crowley told himself and dropped his own hands. They have an idea. It will never work until it does, but Crowley was an optimist, and Aziraphale was…

Aziraphale was following his lead and Crowley would not fail him again.

He does not feel Aziraphale pushing into him, not the way he goes into Aziraphale. Like water gushing past a broken dam into barren lands, he's surprised at how readily Aziraphale soaked him in as if his body had never known water. Despite his acceptance of Crowley, the angel remained locked inside his own corporeal form. Afraid of what, Crowley does not know, except that Aziraphale was about to burst with two souls overflowing.

Crowley reached out into the lonely expanse between with two or ten thousand hands. Aziraphale shivered and Crowley hoped it wasn’t with fear, hoped he hid himself well enough to not frighten Aziraphale further.

“Come,” he implored, winching his occult deeper and deeper away from the hesitant ethereal spirit he must lure into his corporeal form. In the physical world, he squeezed Aziraphale’s hand, and wondered if it really squeezed back or if his imagination truly was that wicked.

_You’ll find a place waiting for you here. If you wish._

A sigh rippled through them both, the sound of his wings - or are they now Aziraphale’s - fluttered about and like a river down a mountain, like the Nile in flood season, Aziraphale flowed into him.

It’s over, finally.

Crowley, in the brief time he was in Heaven with Aziraphale’s body, cannot understand how Aziraphale considered for longer than he already has that place to ever truly be his home. Nothing of Aziraphale resides in Heaven, save for God Herself but where has She been the past six thousand years anyways.

A laugh tinkled his right ear and pulled him up from those dark, murky thoughts. A lot could be said, he had half a mind to launch into it.

Instead Crowley looked over at Aziraphale’s smiling face, raised his glass, and with a toast to the world he let it go.

They do not talk about anything of Heaven and Hell over dinner, not once. Crowley spent ample time ordering dish after dish for Aziraphale to dine upon while he sat and sipped his wine, content to simply watch. Hours long dinners at the Ritz are not uncommon for them, the wait staff always rewarded handsomely for their patience with what Crowley has heard them be referred to as a ‘lovely duo’. With no reason to feel guilt, if demons ever felt such things, he leaned back and watched Aziraphale devour his way through their celebration of this physical world. He also admired its people, its endlessly curious people, and how they made such interesting things for his best friend to enjoy.

Clever humans, Crowley thought as he waved to the attentive waiter for their cheque. So much like and unlike God in all the ways that mattered.

Rudely ignoring Aziraphale’s affronted, fluttering protest he handed his credit card to the waiter, and after a leisurely polish off of their wine they rose in unison to depart. It is later than Crowley expected when they step out of the restaurant into a London with sunlight dripping molten gold over the rim of the earth. Their time together was almost done.

Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked in silence to the Bentley, parked legally for once. Aziraphale hummed a tune he did not share with Crowley, but it is familiar somehow, and that was enough.

“Drop you back off at the bookshop, angel?” Crowley knew Aziraphale had not been back there since it burnt down. No doubt he was missing his home, his books. A long sleep awaits Crowley, back at his own place now that the events of the day are over with. Now that he knew Aziraphale was alive and safe and next to him. Aziraphale shook his head as Crowley groped for the passenger side door-handle and flung the door open. At the impatient jerk of his head Aziraphale climbed into the Bentley. Aziraphale dipped his chin in thanks, cheeks flushed from wine, and Crowley shut the door and made his way to the driver’s side, opening it to hear Aziraphale’s high voice calling to him.

“I was wondering, actually. If we could stop for a bit at your flat?” Crowley slammed the driver’s side door shut with more force than intended, wincing before he turned to Aziraphale, eyebrows to his hairline. At least his mouth was not agape like an overzealous fool, Crowley congratulated himself.

“Well,” Aziraphale continued, clasped hands brought up towards his chest as an armour-plate against Crowley’s stare. “That is, it has been a trying day and you _did_ invite me to stay at your place last night, but we were rather busy with that whole business.”

“Yeah. Was more important than giving you a tour,” Crowley drawled, a hand hovered over the key in the ignition as he wondered what Aziraphale was getting at. Aziraphale did not respond and bit his lip as his eyes dart away. Crowley let out a long sigh, then turned the engine over and without looking pulled them into the street.

It is fine, he told the uncomfortable tension in his chest. This will be fine.

“‘Course, of course. Let me make a turn.”

Aziraphale stiffened in his seat, unyielding even as Crowley u-turned the Bentley in the middle of the intersection, although he winced at the loud honking from several cut off drivers.

“If it is too much of a trouble then let’s—”

“Not a problem, angel,” Crowley ground out, fingers tapping a restless beat on the steering wheel before he jerked half a centimetre to dodge an oblivious cyclist. “Figured you wanted to go home, s’all.”

His tongue soured under the word, swallows the acrid taste coating his mouth. Home. Aziraphale’s home, where he belongs and Crowley back in his flat, without anywhere to really belong. The way things should be. The way they both should be.

“I…”

Crowley cannot help but glance over at the distressed noise, sucking in a breath between his teeth. Aziraphale sat burnished gold from waist to crown in fading light, looking out at London’s crowded streets blurring by. His hands are twisting knots in his lap, a habit Crowley knew well on the angel now. Crowley reached over against his better judgment, wanting nothing more than to settle Aziraphale’s worries, whatever they might be.

Except that is not what Aziraphale has ever wanted of him, friend or no.

He changed course somewhere over the Bentley’s centre console, reaching up in front of Aziraphale to flip the visor down, casting the angel’s face in shadow. Aziraphale jumped, whipping back over to face Crowley but he’s already turned back to the road, where he is about to run another busy intersection’s red light. He pressed the accelerator into the floor, heard the tires of other cars squeal.

“We’ll be there in about ten,” Crowley rasped, certain his own hands would be trembling were they not gripping the steering wheel so tight.

Crowley did not pay much attention to the flat outside of his plants. Everything looked the way it should for someone like him, updated every decade or so to keep appearances for whatever the latest trend happened to be. He only really got around to spending more than a couple hours in the flat once the Anti-Christ arrived on earth, and after Aziraphale requested he stay nearby for the past eleven years. Crowley always assumed the angel’s reason to be about Crowley remaining easier to track down should anything pop up. Since then, it has been his main place to haunt outside of the bookshop.

Aziraphale stepped into the centre of the flat, glancing around with curiosity now that the flat was visible in the light of day.

Before Crowley turned he watched Aziraphale move further inward, now caught in the setting sun’s glow as it blurred through the windows to give the entire space an amber gold hue. Crowley would not be surprised if each sunbeam travelled its fraction of a light year across space to Earth just to be what set the curls of Aziraphale’s hair alight. He moved into the perfectly clean, ultra-modern kitchen to grab their drinks and glasses, an ear cocked towards the sound of Aziraphale’s shoes clicking small, careful steps down concrete hallways.

Then, as he expected they would, the steps halted.

Crowley came back out, knowing exactly why Aziraphale stopped. At the end of the hallway was the winged statue, during the Blitz years ago. He had returned much later after dropping Aziraphale off at the bookshop to write up an obligatory, half-arsed report for Intelligence. As he’d stepped over the rubble to snap pictures for evidence, he found himself staring at that horrible statue longer than any demon worth their Fall should.

How it ended up in his flat and in none of the photographs he took of the rubble was no one’s business. There’s no reason he could not take a memento, he’d told himself and thus far his opinion was still the only one he valued.

It was also the closest Aziraphale himself had ever been to being in this flat for those seventy long years.

“Have you,” Aziraphale’s throat staggered as he swallowed. “Did you ever bring him here?”

Crowley paused, an odd pang in his chest at the offhand mention of the American man he called partner for forty years. The waves threatened to rise once more, but instead of suppressing them, he let it wash over gentler than it all used to be. Grief was an interesting state to fall into, he has learned over time, and so was acceptance. He wondered, for a moment, if he would ever have gotten through to the final stage of grieving Aziraphale had he truly been gone from this world. With a shake of his head he shoved the thought away.

“No,” Crowley replied as steady hands poured Aziraphale out a thumb of scotch while he reached for a bottle of bourbon. He picked up a penchant for this type of whiskey during a trip to Kentucky some thirty odd years ago. An anniversary of sorts. He carried such things with him, it seemed, but they do not weigh him down as he always feared they would.

“States were enough. Good music for one. We had a decent place together so no need to go anywhere else.” Out of the corner of his eye Aziraphale flinched, saying nothing. While Crowley no longer possessed the willpower to wonder what he did wrong this time, it ached all the same. This inescapable longing to comfort Aziraphale and apologise for being Crowley, whatever it was about him that hurt Aziraphale so.

They settled on opposite sides of his deliberately uncomfortable couch, and stare into their drinks until Crowley raised a mock toast. A delicate clink echoed throughout his empty, cold flat until it faded once more into silence. Far in the distance the distinct shrill wail of sirens rose up. Ambulatory, he concluded, knowing the sound well.

If Aziraphale noticed the difference in their drinks he said nothing and swirled the amber liquid in their lingered quiet. Crowley refrained from downing his entire glass in one go; exhaustion has at last crept into his bones and he did not want the day to end yet.

A little longer with Aziraphale here, that cannot be wrong to ask for.

_Stay, like you have these past six thousand years._ The words were choked back down his throat with more bourbon. Satan this stuff was just as awful as he remembered, he grimaced to himself. He took another sip.

“I must admit, my dear, I have never been to America.” Aziraphale ran a finger along the rim of his glass, breaking the painful stalemate at last and Crowley let out a breath he didn’t realise had lodged itself in his chest.

“While I’m sure it is an enjoyable place, for me it never quite had the allure of England.”

“Each state’s different,” Crowley tried, wading into the conversation not unlike he would murky waters. “If you don’t find something you like in one, you’ll probably find it in another.”

Aziraphale hummed in thought, taking a long sip without savouring the drink as he usually did. He seemed to be deliberately avoiding Crowley’s gaze.

“What ah, state, were you in then?”

“Don’t remember the name, was on the coast. Had its nice spots most of the time.” He remembered nice spots, yes. He also remembered decades of hurricane seasons weathered out in that small apartment, lying powerless under piles of blankets and shaking in the American man’s embrace while the storm raged on overhead. As though each howl of wind were ready to break down the door and take this from him too. Blunted nails bit into the meat of his palm. He focused on the pain as his tongue flicked out, tasted a hint of his sweat and blood in the air along with a curious scent not from him, unable to place much to his frustration. His flat has only ever smelled like him.

“I’m sure it had more than a couple nice spots,” Aziraphale smiled into his drink. It is not one of his warm, happy smiles, where he could illuminate an entire room and send Crowley right into a head-spin. This one shadowed Aziraphale’s eyes, and Crowley was colder for it.

“Why else would you have stayed so long?”

Aziraphale waited for him to respond, and Crowley would rip his wings out if doing so yielded the answer. There is one he can give, and it is not what Aziraphale would want to hear.

_There was nothing from here, yet you were everywhere I went._

Museums were toured and Crowley spent more time looking at the scenery paintings than the sculptures he helped inspire centuries ago. He stood before each one, asked the silent artwork what Aziraphale saw in its sad green and blue and occasionally red landscapes. Dates were had at various eateries all over the country, and when he was not so enraptured by his American man, his eyes would scan the menu and the question about what Aziraphale would order always crept into his mind. Stops at gas stations on their annual road trip had him browsing rows of bright coloured snack items to find what ridiculous kinds Aziraphale might like and would he have even gone on a road trip with Crowley? 

Maybe, if Crowley had stayed in England. They would not go far, just down to the shoreline, or maybe to Scotland. Would Aziraphale have let Crowley hold his hand and help him walk along Clò-Mòr. When Aziraphale remarked at how lovely the view was as he looked out over it all, Crowley would agree, except he would be looking right at Aziraphale instead.

But Crowley had not stayed in England and Aziraphale had no curiosity in his eyes. He knew why Crowley never came back, him and his wretchedly broken heart from all those years ago laid bare before an angel who called him too fast, too this, too that.

Too much of everything Aziraphale did not want.

He opened his mouth and reached back in time to find something, anything to cover him like a woolen toga covered his marks from Aziraphale’s judgmental stare.

“No fancy clubs over there for you, sorry.”

Aziraphale’s glass paused halfway to his mouth. All the air in the room left in a forceful rush and took the breath from Crowley’s lungs with it. 

Oh fuck.

He slid his polite gaze towards Crowley.

“Ah yes, you would know about that, wouldn’t you?” Crowley refrained from groaning at the argument he knew to be coming. Talk about his own damned fault.

“How have you any right to interfere with my club?” Aziraphale turned on him, beautiful and terrible as he bathed in the cold light of Crowley’s flat. Nothing has ever looked like it belonged in this place quite like Aziraphale does now. Crowley unhinged his jaw and swallowed the vision before him whole. Does not bother denying the accusation. Never able to lie to Aziraphale, even after all this time.

He needed to make this quick, his self-control hung by a thread with the day they’ve had and Aziraphale digging his nails into this old wound are the pair of scissors ready to snip it.

“Heard about that, did you?” Aziraphale’s cheek twitched over his clenched jaw in a way Crowley decided he adored.

“Of course I heard, it caused me quite a bit of trouble,” Aziraphale snapped, fingers tight around his glass. “According to my fellow members some gentleman _\- _if you can be called such - strode right into the club throwing my name around and the next thing I hear is you’ve - you’ve seduced one of the newest members. Without even bothering to introduce yourself to the rest. Left me to deal with the aftermath of the whole matter, in fact!”

Crowley frowned, suddenly not interested in making this easier for either of them. He downed half of his bourbon in one go, wiped his mouth with a shirtsleeve.

Alright then, he sunk his nails into it right alongside Aziraphale’s.

“If I’ve got this right,” he ran his tongue against his teeth, catching the point of a fang. “What you’re saying is I should have given all those toffs a go first? Would’ve run through your entire club before I got to that fine chap. Even I get tired after a while. Next time I’ll keep your request in mind, though.”

He pulled another long sip from his drink, spurred on by Aziraphale’s stunned silence.

“Know you were busy with all your dance routines and-” Lovers, he withheld for his own heart’s sake. “You ever speak with him? _Nice _young man, real nice, since you like that word so much. Passing him up would have been an outright sin - not that you could ever understand such a thing. You’re an angel and all but trust me on this one—”

Aziraphale’s face had blanched, bordering on sickly, and Crowley paused, the words caught in his throat.

“I—” Aziraphale swallowed, setting his drink down on the side table as his hands rest in his lap, knuckles white.

Crowley set his own glass down, and dropped his head into his hands, unsure of how after _six thousand years,_ after all they’ve gone through together, this was how they ended up. Arguing over nothing and yet everything at the same time.

He’s so fucking tired.

“Of all things to talk about regarding us, why this one.”

Aziraphale brought a hand to his lips. “We’ve never talked about what this — about us, before. Not really.”

Crowley sighed and stood up. Nowhere to go, but he could not be here any longer. Let Aziraphale have the bed, the whole damn flat, he'd practically built it for him anyways. “Not much to say. With you it’s been the same thing since the beginning. You're an angel, I’m a demon and therefore I’m wrong. Something like that, yeah?”

"Now, now that is not fair.” Aziraphale breathed a laugh, or what would have been one if his voice weren’t so dark.

“What do you know about fair, angel.“ At the wrong or right time, depending on who was asked, he whirled around to see etched into the lines of Aziraphale’s face a longing so desperate, so ancient that Crowley, stunned by the sight, wondered how many millennia deep Aziraphale had buried it.

“After all this time, do you truly think it is because you are a demon?” Aziraphale asked as he stood up, eyes wild and wet, a tempest battering against the storm shutters flung open in Crowley’s chest. A storm Crowley never can outrun, no matter how fast his legs carried him. “Time and again I watched you, in Babylon, in Rome, in a _thousand _other places, Crowley. While you went about your business, leading them to - down _that _path. Sometimes, I was the last thing they turned to look at as I watched you go, smug and—”

Crowley stepped closer, drawn to the swelling distress in Aziraphale’s voice and he’s outside standing under a grey sky, its endless clouds ready to break.

“Taunting me as though - with what I could never have,” Aziraphale rasped, eyes squeezed shut against the tears gathering there to Crowley’s horror. “I endured it, knowing that if you were at my side anything was manageable. And then you came back from America, _forty _years without a word, Crowley. Forty years after I gave you holy water, thinking the worst, praying I had not—”

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, blinking away towards somewhere off in the middle distance, and Crowley knew a wound lay there, one he would need to answer for one day. If their friendship survived this.

“I was prepared, seeing you standing in my doorway, to ask you to stay, give you whatever it took to keep you here, to not have to relive those decades of wondering if you were alive or dead. But then you walked in talking about, about someone else—” his voice broke, ragged breaths heaving his chest. “And, I still hoped.” Aziraphale shuddered, hands coming to grip his own arms, a comfort Crowley ached to provide him. “I knew then that if you asked me even as you, as you _loved_ another, I would have said yes. It was much too late, though. Perhaps it always has been—”

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, at a loss. Unable to do more than reach up, thumb away a tear that slipped onto the palm of his hand.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale mourned, a quiet, long-hidden sound that echoed through Crowley’s head. Without a thought, he wrapped his arms around Aziraphale.

“My thoughts of you have never changed, not once. I’ve wanted it to be me, from the moment I met you on that wall and you smiled at me,” Aziraphale gripped Crowley’s jacket, shaking under Crowley’s thin hands.

“I kept waiting for it to be me.”

This entire time, Crowley has operated under the pretence that if he went slow enough, if he waited for Aziraphale one day he would be found worthy. Instead Aziraphale had been waiting for Crowley to be safe enough to give himself to and for six millennia, with every reckless, selfish endeavour, Crowley proved time and again that was not the case at all.

_You go too fast for me._ How many times has he left Aziraphale behind?

Crowley held Aziraphale close, not quite processing it all yet. The reality they both got it so wrong between one another. _For so long_ pressed tight against his chest, threatened to overwhelm. His wretched black heart roared for him to tear the universe asunder as he once did with stars he hated, that weren’t good enough. Let him rebuild it all, bring them back to a time and place where none of this occurred, where he could do right by Aziraphale as he’s always deserved. He could have looked back so many times, the way he’d always wanted to. How was he supposed to know he could have crafted Aziraphale a library in Milan as the angel worked to rebuild Alexandria's library by hand and mind. Could someone, anyone, have told him it was alright to find a villa near the hanging gardens of Babylon, and under the tamarisk trees Aziraphale would have been his first kiss instead of someone now long forgotten.

So many ways, he could have built them a—

“Angel, angel it’s always been you.”

Aziraphale gasped out a sob, collapsing into Crowley’s arms but he was strong enough even without demonic energy, and Aziraphale has never been too heavy for Crowley to carry in any way. He swung an arm underneath Aziraphale’s knees and lifted without so much as a grunt while ignoring the hiccupped, wet squawk he received. He walked slow, his footsteps silent on the cold floors as he moved them to the bedroom, the perfect place for Aziraphale to rest. In an inelegant tumble they fell atop the soft bed, laying on their sides to face one another as they pieced together the missteps and misunderstandings of so many years gone by.

Crowley watched each tear drip from Aziraphale’s eyes onto the pillows underneath, longed to kiss them away, so he did.

“It’s,” Aziraphale swallowed, shivered as Crowley’s hands ran up and down his arms in what he hoped was reassurance, as his lips pressed to both damp cheeks. “It is a lot, lot happening right now.”

Crowley shook his head. “Nothing is happening, I swear. Nothing has to happen. It’s just, you've,” he cannot believe the words, spoken on a breath ripped from his lungs.

“Wanted me since,” his grip tightened, a burn crawling up his throat. “Since.”

“Loved you,” Aziraphale corrected under a whisper, curling in on himself only to stop and try to relax into Crowley’s touch. “Loved you since then, that is.”

Crowley could see the tremors blurring Aziraphale’s lines, the overwhelming uncertainty and vulnerability that came with everything Aziraphale has given him tonight. For someone that has carried this for the entire history of earth, Crowley could not blame Aziraphale for how he felt. It would be like trying to unclench a fist, one finger at a time.

His fingertips hovered over Aziraphale’s jaw, their bodies so close, an unnecessary, expansive breath away from touching consecration incarnate.

“Loved me,” he whispered, slithered closer until he was nose to nose with Aziraphale.

“Yes,” Aziraphale replied, the syllable wavered on his tongue. Oh, he’s so terribly strong, his angel is. Cracked wide open and pouring everything he has out to Crowley and he’s not going to let a drop of it go to waste, he’ll drink it all down and drown if that is what it takes. He’s done this thousands of times, well into the tens of thousands no doubt - one never really stopped enjoying a good fuck and it was an easy temptation when Hell was bored between major evils. Crowley knew logically that it came down to a series of careful movements and sensations. If all else failed, a steady hand never went out of style, he’s learned.

Except, this is not a fuck in the same way his flat is not a home. It’s Aziraphale and love and making love and he has little experience in these precious things.

“Loved me,” he repeated, brought his hands to cradle Aziraphale’s pale, tear-stained face. “Like I love you.”

After six thousand years in the well-practiced flesh of this all too human body, Crowley trembled when his lips met Aziraphale’s.

This, from what Crowley can gather as he listened to the sharp intake of breath from the angel, was Aziraphale’s first kiss. It had to be. Aziraphale, for all his enthusiastic grip on Crowley’s arms and wet lips gasping against Crowley’s own, was not very good at it. His jaw remained locked shut, head angled the wrong way even as Crowley corrected him with a gentle nudge. He tensed up when Crowley’s arms wound around him, but with a bravery Crowley has come to admire in Aziraphale, he eased into it.

It was the best kiss Crowley has ever had. Has he even truly been kissed before now?

“Crowley,” Aziraphale blinked up at him when they parted, eyes soft and wet, hopeful beyond comprehension and Crowley’s chest ached. He leaned in to kiss Aziraphale again, determined to not let him down.

One by one he undid the buttons of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, haplessly rumpled from their embrace but the angel did not complain as Crowley kept their mouths pressed close, as he nipped and licked his way into the angel’s mouth. Crowley pulled away long enough to tear at his own clothing, throwing it to the side without a care as Aziraphale’s eyes widened with each inch of skin Crowley exposed to him and exposed of him in return. Crowley knew what he looked like. Has never disliked what he saw in the mirror, what with his yellow eyes and forked tongue, the curiously serpentine skin rippling with patches of scales, black-red atop the haphazard tattoos and myriad of scars he’s collected on his human body over the years. All of it smeared _serpent _along whipcord hips and thighs, across the broad expanse of his chest and back. He’s leveraged his form’s appeal like a weapon, a tool for whatever he fancied, yet in the wake of what lay before him as the last of Aziraphale’s clothing fell away, he found himself humbled.

Aziraphale, a total contrast to Crowley, was awe-striking in his perceived humanity. Not a harsh element to be found on the vessel containing his ethereal indescribability.

Except, he sat there shaking so hard his teeth chattered, and Crowley wrapped himself and the blankets around him, pulling them both down into black silk sheets.

“You’re fine,” Crowley ran a hand down his shivering back, trying to convince himself of the same words he poured into Aziraphale’s ears. They kiss, and kiss more, his hand fixed to Aziraphale’s back, over where white wings might burst through. “I promise, angel.”

Aziraphale buried his face into Crowley’s chest, hands folded over his own chest. “You’re here.”

Coaxing Aziraphale to relinquish the covers took as long as expected under Crowley’s limitless patience. By the time Aziraphale was ready the sun had long sunken over the horizon, the room tinged moonlight hue and Crowley’s pupils adjusted without pause. Underneath him Aziraphale glowed in the soft moonlight, each rolling curve caught by shadow and light in perfect balance. Crowley, unable to decide which one was more beautiful to see, chose both. Aziraphale shifted in Crowley’s embrace under the scrutiny which has gone on longer than it should have, arms back up to cover himself and Crowley pulled them away carefully, settled them back down at Aziraphale’s sides.

“Let me look at you,” he implored with as much gentleness a demon can muster in the face of such a sight. Aziraphale glanced away, skin flushed pink, but he held still.

He must have been here before, in some way, or along the way to where they are now. Everything was too familiar. From the pale stretch marks on Aziraphale’s chest, belly, and thighs, all the way to the soft valleys of his hips, Crowley traced each one in the way a serpent might climb an apple tree’s boughs.

His observation from over a decade ago was correct. Aziraphale had gained weight, padded over those curved hips and thighs just as Crowley originally thought. A pleased sound rumbled through his chest with satisfaction to set Aziraphale’s skin aflush. He leaned down to mouth where his fingers once were along Aziraphale’s stomach, sucked a mark where the skin dimpled and stretched.

Aziraphale moaned softly into the quiet under Crowley’s diligent, adoring attention. His thighs fell open to make a place for Crowley to slot his sharp hips between and it was like Crowley unlocked a door he always held the key to. He became the ideal guest as he offered kisses into the crook of each elbow, on the giving flesh of soft upper arms, the curiously ticklish backs of his knees. No inch of Aziraphale was left untouched, unworshipped.

“Six thousand years on Earth,” Crowley bent down to kiss Aziraphale on the mouth this time while his hands skimmed, caressed every curve, and he revelled in how Aziraphale let him do so.

“In none of them have I ever beheld anything like you, angel.”

Aziraphale shuddered in response and Crowley breathed deep. Lungs, more function than form nowadays, filled with the scent of Aziraphale, of book dust and the damp earth after a good rain and the clean tang of an angel’s sweat.

“Yes,” he hissed as teeth worked gentle along Aziraphale’s neck, humming in pleasure at the whimper he received, the arching to expose more to his questing mouth. Between them Aziraphale’s arousal pressed into Crowley’s stomach, the angel rocking against him in short, hesitant movements. As a hand fumbled with the bottle of lubricant, he mouthed sharp fangs over smooth skin where a pulse fluttered under the surface and felt Aziraphale’s hips twitch, a moan let out into the still air.

“Lift your legs a little.” Aziraphale nodded frantically and complied as Crowley slid his drenched hand between Aziraphale’s open thighs, groaned as the tip of his finger slipped in. “Just like that, angel?” He asked and Aziraphale moaned as though he had already come, his body tightened and clenched around the long, curling finger that worked deeper inside, toes digging into the bed sheets as the angel sought purchase away from, or towards, the intrusion.

“Oh, oh please Crowley."

There was no rush, even though Crowley felt as if he is holding back the floodgates of Heaven, but Aziraphale wanted him to slow down, to wait for him to catch up and so he will do that. He smoothed a hand down Aziraphale’s back, listened close to each sigh he received and plucked them from the air to cradle within the water-proof vault of his memory. His fingers caught the folds of Aziraphale’s body, nestled between them as Aziraphale relaxed into the sensations Crowley opened within him. They do not move, save for the blood rushing hot through Crowley’s body, the flushed chest panting breath in and out of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale squirmed on Crowley’s excessively lubricated fingers, caught between the precarious balance of too much and not enough. His plump hands wrung the dark silk sheets to ruin as he shifted in hesitant pleasure and Crowley saw the ocean in each ripple of Aziraphale’s body. As his fingers worked, he pressed gentle kisses into the juncture of Aziraphale’s hip, along his small cock, savoured like a parched man how he trembled and moaned.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed his name like it was cherished in his mouth, and his eyes fell shut. Crowley eased his tongue away at the sound and crawled over the angel’s body as though he knew the path by heart to trail-blaze a kiss upon each eyelid so he could feel blond lashes flutter against his lips.

Fingers were replaced with him between Aziraphale’s thighs, and the slick, welcoming heat shred the last threads of his self-control. Like shedding a too-tight skin his human form dissolved under Aziraphale’s fumbling, searching hands, his unholy dark scales rippled up to the surface, unable to suppress it. All his energy was focused on how Aziraphale looked underneath him, spread out and softer than Crowley’s sharp angles knew what to do with.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he could not stop himself from saying, swallowed down the knot in his throat as Aziraphale’s eyes opened, his perfectly round pupils blown wide and dark.

There was no sound save for the deep breaths shared between them in the humid air as he slid inside. Crowley gasped at the overwhelming sensation, exquisitely warm and yielding then froze despite every instinct he had when Aziraphale cried out in alarm, eyes lined from barely contained panic, lips thinned with worry. A hiss escaped as his tongue scented the sharp tang of uncertainty that had begun to overpower the angel’s earlier arousal.

“Hold onto me.”

Aziraphale’s hands - with the slightest tremor - reached up to anchor through Crowley’s auburn-shift hair, never pulling, not to tug Crowley towards him but he leaned down and took the invitation, the air already clearing to again make room for pleasure.

Quiet hitches of breath and half-gasps were all to be had from Aziraphale as he was sunken into, enough to warn Crowley that anything more than _slow_ would be far too much for Aziraphale to handle. As he worked himself deeper inside between the angel’s shaking exhales, Crowley contemplated an eternity which solely contained this gentle, languid way to make love to Aziraphale and his warm, slick body and found himself content by the notion.

Crowley moved forward until he was flush against Aziraphale at last and sighed out what could have been a name. He rest his sweat-soaked forehead atop Aziraphale’s and said it louder so the angel would have no doubt it was a name, specifically his. With a tender squeeze to each one he peeled Aziraphale’s tense hands from his hair to twine their fingers together, press them down into the sheets that flowed with their joined movements. Underneath him Aziraphale’s eyes flit over Crowley’s face, shocked and blissful from a prolific catalogue of never known sensations, and the storm cloud in Crowley’s hollow-damp chest threatened to burst with the enormity of what he has been given.

He would have loved Aziraphale if he had taken a thousand lovers, he would have loved Aziraphale if they never did this. He’ll love Aziraphale through all the ages to come anyways, but there has been no one else before Crowley and here they are after all these years, together in a way Crowley never allowed himself to believe possible.

How could he ever deserve this? He will find a way, start right here in making sure Aziraphale never regrets that he chose Crowley.

As the minutes stretched on into what might have been hours, Aziraphale at last nodded his readiness, his chin tilted upwards and Crowley dipped down, savoured the slide of his tongue into Aziraphale’s fruit-red mouth. He doesn’t withhold his hum of pleasure at the ease in which Aziraphale yielded to his slow thrust out, then back in. Aziraphale’s legs bent up around his hips with a gentle hiss of encouragement, cradling him close and Crowley settled into the welcome sanctuary they offered for his careful rhythm.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed out, hands clenching and twisting in Crowley’s sure grip. His hips hesitantly rocked down and plunged Crowley into that wet heat forcing a moan from both of them. “That, my dear that feels...”

More scales broke through his skin as Crowley sunk all the way back inside. Shudders rippled through his body into Aziraphale at the soft sounds he continued to give with each gentle thrust Crowley made, as careful as can be.

“Crowley, please.”

Somebody help him, he would do anything in that moment for Aziraphale, and he moved with purpose, steering them towards the edge. He led them down a path they’ve walked together in so many ways before, this time with a love they declared between every breath and moan and meeting of their bodies.

Molten fire pooled at the base of Crowley’s sweat slicked spine, his thrusts stuttered with each withdraw from the wet, yielding embrace of Aziraphale the longer it went on. The temptation of release threatened to overflow but Aziraphale had not come yet despite his increasingly desperate moans and the shocks of pleasure that arced through his body. The poor creature splayed open underneath him cannot seem to figure out how to relax and let it all happen, and damn Crowley twice if that is how Aziraphale’s first time goes.

A hand slipped from Aziraphale’s to settle between them and with a bitten back cry he jolted when Crowley pulled a sweat-slick hand along his sensitive cock. Aziraphale twitched, shifted as Crowley tightened his grip and offset the steady rhythm he’d built but it only spurred Crowley on, angling until Aziraphale writhed and he threw his head back, mouth open in vocal ecstasy, eyes shut tight.

“Look at me,” he rasped, hated himself with a force not of this world when Aziraphale’s eyes snapped open at his pathetic, begging tone. Yet whatever he had feared to see was not there as those wide blue eyes met his with so much adoration, so much _love _Crowley believed he could forgive himself this once.

Aziraphale was close, Crowley could see the angel grasping, unsure how to do it himself. His thrusts took on a deeper angle and when he tightened his grip around Aziraphale a high, broken moan sounded out in the air between them as the cresting tide of his pleasure surged in full body, wracking waves. A wet warmth soaked Crowley’s hand but he didn't even care because Aziraphale was coming with _his _name on those perfect lips.

“Crowley Crowley oh _Crowley_—” Aziraphale arched heavenward and Crowley met him halfway, each cry of his own name swallowed as his mouth crashed to Aziraphale’s and he was alone in his Bentley with a thermos of holy water and a broken heart he couldn’t escape. His strange tongue ran down Aziraphale’s soft, trembling jaw and he was in Rome at a candlelit table, sweltering under his robes and an angel’s gaze. He bit into Aziraphale’s exposed neck and he was in Mesopotamia, watching his home wash away in an unforgiving tide by a God that moved in far too mysterious of ways.

He’s soaked to the bone with sweat, with tears but Aziraphale was here as he always has been, even back then. A constant in Crowley’s wretched life and he does not want to leave Aziraphale’s embrace, what he now at long last realised has been his to stay within since the very beginning.

_I love you, I love you, I love you, _the only prayer he has said in six millennia and Crowley mouthed it all into the salt-dampened divot of Aziraphale’s neck. Every muscle in his body sparked with overwhelming, suffocating pleasure the deeper he thrust until he at last came hot inside the clutch of Aziraphale’s trembling body.

Crowley gasped out something broken and reverent into the space between them when the angel’s floodwater eyes met his and he was swept away, unmoored from the earth itself.

_Aziraphale._

He woke to rain.

Blinking in the grey light of the bedroom, Crowley tried to sit up and found he couldn’t. Aziraphale was wrapped entirely in the bed covers, curled halfway onto Crowley who did not have a stitch of fabric over his own body.

What a way to wake up. He could lay there forever listening to the gentle rain outside with Aziraphale in his arms, sound asleep and not a care in the world.

Aziraphale would want to eat when he woke up, however, and the flat had nothing in it suitable for his tastes. Crowley could snap something into existence, but no, not for their first morning together. Not for any morning after, if he was allowed that. With every serpentine skill he possessed, Crowley slinked his way out from his role as Aziraphale’s pillow. An unruly curl atop his undisturbed head called for him to brush it back, and he did that just so he could chase it with a kiss against Aziraphale’s temple, the gentle pulse underneath his lips the most incredible sensation he’s ever known.

Barely attempting to make an effort, Crowley threw on a threadbare tee shirt and slipped into yesterday’s trousers. Warding the flat with each step he took, Crowley slapped a pair of sunglasses to his face and was out the door with a snap.

“Mornin’,” the baker waved at him from behind the counter as she talked about the strange events the past week and asked after Aziraphale. They know his face by now, he and Aziraphale have frequented this particular one faithfully over the past decade. Doesn’t hurt they are probably what keeps them in business most of the time with how much Aziraphale enjoys their pastries.

After a quick back and forth on the order and some more idle chatter about the weather as they bagged the items, Crowley grabbed his purchase and with a wave he was out the door. He’s not one to skip but if a demon were ever inclined to do so, he might have once or twice on the way back to the flat.

Aziraphale was waiting for him, and the notion carried a weight, a significance he’s now intimately aware of. He picked up the pace.

The flat was quiet as he stepped through the doorway, but instead of the oppressive silence he was used to it was the settled quiet of people - more than one - residing within. Crowley set his keys aside and kicked off his shoes in slow movements as he savoured this experience of coming back to Aziraphale being here. With a flick of the tongue he tasted the air to track Aziraphale’s powder light scent throughout the flat, followed it back to the bedroom. He paused at the door to see the blankets wrapped tight around Aziraphale’s curled up body on the bed, facing away from where Crowley just walked in.

Crowley took his time observing Aziraphale in the cold light of day, eyes following the defensive slope of his back, the muted, downtrodden expression on the part of his face Crowley can see. Countless times Crowley has dreamed of what it would be like to see Aziraphale in his flat, in his bed.

This, a silent and tense Aziraphale, was one of the nightmares.

“Angel?” The owner of that name jumped but did not turn around. Crowley rubbed at his jaw, it wanted to unhinge from the stress he forced it to carry as he tried to remain calm.

“I went to the bakery down the street,” Crowley offered, shook the pastry-laden bag for emphasis, words slower than his steps into the room and almost as quiet. “They tried to recommend ones you’d want. Got ones I liked though, sorry.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale breathed deep as if he remembered these bodies required air occasionally. He glanced over his shoulder and Crowley moved closer, hopeful.

“You came back.”

Crowley halted mid-step, swallowed against the heavy pounding of his all too human heart. Can Aziraphale hear it thundering out a hard beat, echoing off the stark walls of his empty bedroom from its place in his not empty enough chest?

“Not so pleased to see me?” He forced a grin with too much fang, not that Aziraphale saw, already turned away. Without Aziraphale’s gaze on him he settled beside the angel on the lovemaking mussed bed, at once emboldened and on edge.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Against his better judgment he reached out to stroke Aziraphale’s sleep fluffed hair as he asked that terrible question. Relief loosened his chest when Aziraphale did not resist and instead raised his head to look at Crowley with what seemed to be red-rimmed eyes.

“No,” Aziraphale clutched the blankets tighter around him. “I would rather you stay, please.”

_Stay._

Crowley leaned over and kissed Aziraphale, a dodgy move since Aziraphale shook his head while talking but as his mouth was caught, he exhaled against Crowley’s, hands twitching on the blanket he kept pulled over his body. Uncaring if his relief permeated through his lips and crawling hands, Crowley coaxed Aziraphale down into the sheets once more, tugging the dark blanket from Aziraphale’s slackened grip. With languid, easy movements he pulled away to undress himself before he returned to the angel in his bed.

“Of course, of course.” It’s all he knew to say, words tangled and stuck, but Aziraphale’s eyes were no longer so rubbed raw, and he counted that as a victory.

He draped himself atop Aziraphale, ran a hand from calf to upper thigh to carefully nudge supple legs open and make a comfortable place Crowley could nestle between while they kissed and caressed. Aziraphale seemed content to lay there as Crowley lavished him, his soft mouth passive and receiving of Crowley’s reassuring attention, but he found each kiss with Aziraphale to be better than any other he’s had before.

If this is how they kissed the rest of eternity, Crowley would be happy he’s getting a ‘rest of’ at all.

Sensitive and ingénue, Aziraphale’s hands tentatively slid up Crowley’s sides, hips shifting closer in search of a friction only Crowley could provide. Unable to stop his grin against Aziraphale’s mouth, Crowley let a hand dip between Aziraphale’s thighs and delighted in the gasp of pleasure he received.

Aziraphale was still wet and _open_ from last night, he found. Crowley panted at the notion as he slipped his fingers in with ease before hooking a hand underneath a knee and splaying Aziraphale wide open to his view. The high blush that bloomed across Aziraphale from crown to cock was incredible to witness. Unable to suppress the urge, his strange tongue flicked out to taste the air filled with sweat and arousal and what he now knew to be uniquely Aziraphale.

“You think I could leave _this_?” Crowley hissed in Aziraphale’s ear, felt him shiver as he pressed deeper to watch how that perfect mouth gasped with the careful massage and stroke of his fingers. “When I finally have you?”

“I, oh, I—” Aziraphale was wrecked. His head tilted back in bliss onto the pillows once more, unable to answer but Crowley did not mind in the slightest.

Crowley moved closer and sunk his other hand into the giving flesh of Aziraphale’s thigh. Long fingers pistoned out a wet noise loud enough to flush Aziraphale’s cheeks and make Crowley growl, darkly possessive of this. His own cock hung heavy between his legs, dripped profusely onto the bedding in response to each moan Aziraphale gave as his soft body jolted from Crowley’s precise fingers.

“Ah, angel,” he said through clenched teeth, fighting a losing battle against his mounting desire to climb between Aziraphale’s spread wide thighs and sink himself deep once again, never let either of them leave this bed. All his effort was in vain as Aziraphale’s hands reached out for him, asking for what he never could say, and Crowley did just that. Gentle, as he always tried so hard to be for the angel, he pulled his fingers free and slid himself into Aziraphale’s trembling body. He could feel his earlier release slicking the way further and _fuck_ just the concept of being inside Aziraphale again was enough to nearly put his stamina to the test.

It’s a good thing he’s practiced all these millennia, Aziraphale deserved perfection each time.

Nothing can compare to this feeling, the natural rise and fall of Aziraphale like a tide that rose to meet him each time he moved in the tender clutch of his body, that followed him as he moved out. He pressed closer, encouraged Aziraphale’s legs around his hips and began a careful, river slow cadence to see them through to their end.

Crowley measured his movements in the space between atoms and were he any slower he would not be moving at all, yet never has this needed to be anything else. All he has ever known of Aziraphale was slow and steady, and everything Crowley longed to give him resided in that.

“It’s alright, you’re doing so well.” Crowley praised, let his long tongue slip along Aziraphale’s neck to chase the rivulets of sweat there. Aziraphale writhed at the sensation, hands gripped into the hard flesh of Crowley’s back as he moved against Aziraphale, over him, never away. At the rising tension in the angel’s body he dipped his face into Aziraphale’s hair, held him impossibly close under his thrusting body to help him towards his second ever climax. Aziraphale in response whined a quiet, almost broken sound from the back of his throat, body tightening around Crowley in a perfect wet clutch, cock pulsing in the long-fingered grip he slipped between them.

It was quick but that was expected, and in two short, determined strokes Aziraphale’s body went taut as his legs bunched up around Crowley’s hips and his eyes snapped open. Caught off guard by the clearest blue, Crowley could only stare back captivated and endlessly beholden.

“Crowley—” Aziraphale choked off with a high, drawn out gasp and tensed in Crowley’s embrace to come at last between them in warm streaks against their stomachs.

All of his will rushed out at the sight beneath him, the feel of how Aziraphale shuddered through his climax, tight and achingly welcoming, the sound of Aziraphale calling his name. With one last deep thrust Crowley came as well, and as he pressed his mouth to Aziraphale’s neck where a holy pulse worth worshipping fluttered, he thanked Someone, Anyone, for this.

“I thought you had,” Aziraphale whispered into the now settled quiet of mid-afternoon as they rest together once more, entwined under the sheets. Across from Crowley lay an angelic vision of sated exhaustion that catered well to his demonic pride, but he does not let it show.

The pastries from this morning’s bakery haul are almost gone, picked through with careful discretion by Aziraphale and fed to him from Crowley’s sugar sticky hand, which now has retired to the occupation of running down Aziraphale’s arm. His fingers traced blue veins that wound like rivers through the pale skin he has mapped the cardinal directions to in his head countless times across the millennia.

He grunted in question, brushed a curl away from Aziraphale’s damp forehead to watch it spring back. The image of leaves bouncing as raindrops fall atop them flit through his mind, and he listened close as Aziraphale spoke.

“Left, that is. I thought you had,” Aziraphale continued as he shifted, arms bent, hands folded under his cheek. “Silly I know, this being your home, after all.”

Their eyes met. Crowley’s hand stilled.

He stared into Aziraphale’s open face and remembered a paradise with green, winding vines, the lush canopies of fruit trees. In the half-second of a blink he visualised the unpolluted night sky hanging above them like a tapestry embroidered with starlight. As his eyes opened he pictured that perfect Garden of Eden, the endless universe of stars, and found it all to be wanting.

“This isn’t my home,” he replied in a voice once whispered into a Child’s ear as she walked towards a forbidden tree. His fingertips caught on the curve of Aziraphale’s flush cheek as though it were fruit ripe for plucking off a low swung branch. Aziraphale flinched, his lower lip trembled as those eyes glistened, ready to spill over but Crowley now understood that all flood waters recede and in their place things would grow, eventually.

“It could be, though. If you’re here.”

Tears streamed down Aziraphale’s face even as his smile broke through the surface, his hands reaching for Crowley. In a desperate fumble of long limbs and heavy breathing he pulled the angel closer than he ever has, right where he should be, and kissed him. Shaky hands combed through Crowley’s mussed hair in response, hesitancy filled the touch but still brave enough to ask him to stay, stay _please_, and he will. He swore it into each gentle press of his lips to Aziraphale’s that he’ll stay.

After all, Crowley remembered every place he’s called home, but he knew the name of only one of them.

“Aziraphale,” he sighed against the angel’s mouth, enfolded him in the cover of his body and poured his love, unrestrained and raw as it was, into a deep kiss Aziraphale accepted without reservation. He could say it forever, maybe he will.

_Aziraphale._

Neither knew how long they kissed, but by the time Aziraphale’s tears ebbed in their flow the sun hung low in the sky, softened the world around them. Reluctant as only he could be when having to part from Aziraphale, Crowley pulled away to stare into Aziraphale’s red-rimmed eyes. Crowley went to speak and paused, ran his strange forked tongue across his lower lip to catch a hint of jam left there from Aziraphale’s own fruit-stained mouth.

There was silence, then Aziraphale’s quiet, incredulous laughter filled the air between them and Crowley found himself laughing too as he buried his joy into Aziraphale’s hair.

They can build something here, he and Aziraphale.

First, come up with a way to bring back the bookshelves and throw blankets, wherever in the ether they happen to be and if not, they can go pick out new ones to add to the already growing collection on this bed. He will pretend to not hear Aziraphale - and he knows he will eventually - compliment the plants when they all think it is safe to do so even though Crowley never fails to keep an ear open wherever Aziraphale is concerned. Walking Aziraphale to his bookshop each day can be the first routine they make together, and no doubt the angel will protest so he can hear Crowley insist. It will be worth the fussy banter to see a pleased flush blossom across Aziraphale’s face each time.

When it rains…

When it rains, they’ll watch from the comfort of a sitting room lined with bookshelves with a roaring fireplace to keep them warm while they settled on a thoroughly modified, Aziraphale-approved settee. Crowley might sprawl out as usual, balancing their bottle of wine on his knee, an arm slung over Aziraphale as he relaxed against him while they bicker-not-bicker about what to put on the telly. They inevitably fall asleep there, safe and dry against the storm outside. How it should always be.

Anything Aziraphale wants, Crowley decided, and beckoned for him to enter the circle of his arms, awed at how readily Aziraphale complied as though it was all he has ever longed for.

They will do all this in time, there is plenty of it. A life containing far more than all the years past now lay ahead for them. So, for now, he basked in watching Aziraphale burrow further under warm covers, his tear-dampened cheek lay to rest atop the flat planes of Crowley’s chest as if he means to make a home there.

Yes, he breathed out, the rise and fall of his chest in sync with Aziraphale’s as sleep crept into his eyes, encouraged him to sink deep under the waves. There is time. There is also a place, and it is right here in this bed, with room enough for—

_He is five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia before forty days of rain and a relentless flood swept it all so far away. A shock of white blond hair caught his eye on his way back home, the unique colour radiated from amidst the gathered crowd that stood facing some strange boat upon a hill. _

_His steps paused, the basket in hand set down, and he watched quietly from a safe distance until a rising wind at his back and everything inside compelled him forward, drawn to the unusual angel he met all those years ago._

_Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale. I remember your name. It fits so well on my tongue in a way my own does not._

_Do you remember me, from the Garden? Your plumage could use a thorough preening, but you covered me there in the first rain. Long after you and the storm left I promised myself I would never be one to watch you walk away again. It mattered, and I do not know why._

_The sky was still clear, and the sun is bright, setting Aziraphale aglow. As he moved closer weaving past nameless, faceless humans, an idea struck to invite Aziraphale back with him._

_Along the way he can tell Aziraphale all about his life in a village with people who know his name. Who smile at him, demon though he is. Every so often he even smiles back when a good mood strikes. Those come more frequently, nowadays._

_He imagines telling Aziraphale about his hut at the beginning of an endless field. How during the night they can gaze up at a million stars scattered amongst distant galaxies so far from Earth. Perhaps Aziraphale would smile when he pointed out the stars he made, repeat in a whisper the secret names he gave each one because a part of him wanted Aziraphale to know them, too._

_Yes, he thought with a hand stretched out to tap the unsuspecting angel's shoulder. Aziraphale would accept the invitation._

_And when they arrive at his modest hut there is not much to greet them, save for a small bed and an even smaller window because only one lives here. That does not change what he offers, when they lay down at night pressed close as they watch his stars come out in the covering sky. What he hopes Aziraphale will see._

_The home he built, with room enough for two._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


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